Words: Joint Media Release
A recent online survey by one of South Africa's top ten largest open medical schemes, Resolution Health and its loyalty and wellbeing partner Zurreal, found that cigarette smoking is a big turn off when it comes to dating for many young South Africans in today's day and age.
"The data from the survey showed that many health-conscious, young South Africans are not picking up the habit compared to their older counterparts," explains Dr Jacques Snyman, clinical adviser for Resolution Health and managing director of integrated care solutions at Agility, owner of the Zurreal programme.
According to Dr Snyman, "there used to be a stage in the not-too-distant past that cigarette smoking was actually considered 'cool.'" Up until the end of the twentieth century, taking a long, deep drag of smoke from a cigarette was seen as a rather sexy, sultry affair. Men ogled at beautifully manicured, red-lipped women delicately drawing on slim rolls of finely shredded premium tobacco leaves enclosed in delicate paper-thin wrappers. Businessmen in spiffy suits swilled their whiskey tumblers and puffed away on cigars or cigarettes at their mahogany desks. You even found doctors on billboards, endorsing their favourite brands of cigarettes. "There is no doubt about it, but smoking used to have sex appeal," he says.
Fast-forward 50 years and there is an altogether different picture. "Results from the survey showed that there has been a definitive change in people's attitudes towards smoking. The fact that someone smokes, can actually be a deal breaker when it comes to dating and choosing a partner," says Dr Snyman. Only 32% of the respondents who participated in the survey were in a relationship with a smoker.
"Why would I want to date or possibly marry someone who might die from lung cancer in 20 years' time?" said one respondent. Another said that kissing a smoker was "like kissing an ashtray" and that it made her feel nauseous. A male respondent admitted as soon as he sees a woman smoking, her level of attractiveness goes down radically in his estimation.
It is clear that government policy has done a lot of legwork in making smoking socially unacceptable. South Africa has indeed made significant strides in curbing the use of tobacco by implementing wide-ranging tobacco control legislation. The Tobacco Products Control Amendment Act signed into law by President Nelson Mandela in 1999 provides South Africa with one of the most comprehensive tobacco control legislation packages in the world.
The act bans tobacco advertising and protects children and adolescents from all promotion of cigarettes and also ensures a smoke-free environment. More recently in 2009, further anti-smoking regulations strengthened limits on smoking in public places and the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco products. These include:
• Larger fines for smoking in non-smoking areas.
• Prohibitions of smoking in partially enclosed public spaces, cars with passengers under the age of 12 and areas used to commercial childcare, schooling or tutoring.
• Compulsory provision of smoking areas to persons only over age of 18.
• Outlawing of tobacco industry-sponsored 'parties', a tactic used to continue to try to promote cigarettes to youngsters.
• Tougher prohibitions on the sale of tobacco products to and by persons under the age of 18.
• South Africa was also one of the first signatories to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control's (FCTC). The convention, which took effect in 2005, was ratified by nearly 170 countries. The recommendations state that smoke-free laws must cover all enclosed public places, workplaces, and public transport.
However, despite the stringent tobacco control legislation in South Africa, there are fears that the new upward trend of 'e-cigarettes' or 'vaping' might make smoking glamorous again, especially among younger members of society. These products exist in a sort of regulatory vacuum and the consequences of the marketing, advertising and sale of these products, especially on the youth, may unravel all the progress South Africa has so far achieved.
With 98% of the respondents in the survey declaring that they were aware of the risks of smoking and almost 40% already having experienced adverse health effects from smoking, it is clear that South Africans are well informed about what they are getting themselves into when taking up the habit. However, when it comes to e-cigarettes the lines are much more blurred and South Africa may just be taking 'one step forward two steps' back in the fight to create a smoke-free society without having a well-defined and implemented regulatory framework for the sale and consumption of e-cigarettes. The question remains, is smoking an e-cigarette still as much as a turn-off as smoking the real deal?
