The proverbial adage, “A picture paints a thousand words,” can very well apply to smokers who may decide to quit, as a recent study revealed, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine recently. It presented solid evidence to prove that “pictorial warnings were more effective for both sexes and across races, ethnicities, and socio-economic levels” in convincing people to quit smoking.
However, in the article by Nicholas Bakalar published on June 8, 2016, although there is a law to this effect passed in 2009 in the US, a tobacco company was able to convince a federal appellate court “to delay implementation, claiming there was no evidence that pictures helped people quit.”
But, the recent study involving 2,149 smokers in a four-week trial of smoking packs of cigarettes with either graphic images or words-only as warnings had countered the claim. These two groups both exhibited the same desire to quit and understood the harms that smoking brings to their bodies.
Bakalar wrote that “by the end of the study, 40 percent of those in the pictorial warning group had quit for at least a day, and 5.7 percent were not smoking during the seven days before their final interview, compared with 34 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively, in the text-only group.”
The graphic warnings included images showing a wrinkled woman with damaged skin, sexual dyfunctions, sick babies, clogging of arteries in the heart, mouth cancer, and damaged gums and teeth.
In June 2001, Canada became the first country to require graphic health warnings on cigarette packages, considering the tens of thousands of Canadians dying each year because of smoking and tobacco use. Following suit were Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
Bakalar, in his article, acceded to what Noel T. Brewer said, who is the lead researcher and professor of health behavior at the University of North Carolina, who observed that as “the first well-controlled study that demonstrates a change in behavior, it is time for the US to adopt pictorial warnings as delaying is causing people to continue smoking and die as a result.”
With the ill effects of smoking on people’s health and well-being widely and graphically circulated, it is now a matter of choice on the part of smokers whether to quit or to continue smoking until their last breath.
In Dumaguete City, there have been discussions as to the plan to close the main thoroughfare that is Perdices Street and make it as a “walking neighborhood.” It might just be as well not only to health buffs, but for everyone who have a stake in the city and cognizant of the, oftentimes, chaotic and exasperating traffic situation, especially during peak hours.
In the article by Nicholas Bakalar on May 24, 2016 where he mentioned a particular study published in JAMA, he explained that “neighborhoods designed for walking may decrease the rates of being overweight or obese and having diabetes by more than 10 percent.”
The study was done in urbanized areas in Ontario, Canada involving more than three million people in 8,777 neighborhoods. Using a 100-point scale, the study ranked the respondents for “walkability” and measured “population density, number of facilities within walking distance of residences, and how well connected their webs of streets are.”
Considering the age, sex, and income, among others, of the respondents, the study found that the number of individuals considered “overweight and obese” was more than 10 percent lower in one-fifth of neighborhoods rated highest for “walkability.” The study, which was done in a span of 12 years, likewise registered an increase of obesity and being overweight in the three-fifths of neighborhoods that were “lowest in walkability” by as much as 9.2 percent. The two-fifths that were rated as “highest in walkability” revealed the same results.
Cases of diabetes were also lowest in the “most walkable” neighborhoods. Activities like walking, cycling, and using public transport were rated high in walkable neighborhoods, which “lead to better health outcomes.”
Bakalar’s article qualified that although the researchers admit that the results of the study do not prove the causes of being overweight or obese, as well as having diabetes, senior author, Dr. Gillian Booth of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, attested that “the healthiest neighborhoods seem to be those where cars are not a necessity.” | NWI
