The differences in smoking rates between boys and girls are not as large as one would expect. Boys are more likely than girls to smoke, but in almost 60 percent of countries covered by the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS), there was no significant difference in smoking rates between boys and girls.

An overwhelming majority of male smokers begin using tobacco before reaching adulthood. Nearly one-quarter of young people who smoke tried their first cigarette before the age of ten. The uptake of smoking among boys increases with tobacco industry marketing; easy access to tobacco products; low prices; peer pressure; use and approval of tobacco by peers, parents, and siblings; and the misperception that smoking enhances social popularity.

While the most serious health effects of tobacco consumption typically occur after decades of smoking, tobacco also causes immediate health effects for youth, such as reduced stamina. Young men who smoke experience significantly higher risks of erectile dysfunction than those who don’t smoke, and the risk of impotence increases with every cigarette smoked.

The most important risk to adolescents is the acquisition of a life-shortening addiction. Smokers who become addicted to tobacco in their youth face the highest risks of contracting and succumbing to the most dreaded tobacco related diseases: cancer, emphysema, stroke, and heart disease.

Unless smoking trends change dramatically, tobacco will eventually kill 250 million of today’s teenagers and children.

Eighty-six percent of youth worldwide agree that smoking does not make boys more attractive.

About 50 million Chinese children, mostly boys, will eventually suffer premature death due to tobacco-related diseases.

Monitor tobacco use and prevention policies
Protect people from tobacco smoke
Offer help to quit tobacco use
Warn about the dangers of tobacco
Enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
Raise taxes on tobacco

Building on the first-ever global public health treaty - the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) - the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008 issued a comprehensive country-level report on the global tobacco epidemic. This report provides data from 179 countries covering 99% of the world’s population and sets baselines for implementation and enforcement of the six evidence-based and cost-effective policies of the WHO MPOWER strategy. Currently only 5% of the world’s population is fully protected by any one of the MPOWER interventions and no country implements and enforces all of them. By taking action to implement MPOWER, the leaders of governments and civil society can create the necessary environment to protect children from tobacco, help people quit tobacco use and save millions of lives a year.

The final version of the online Tobacco Atlas will have information on MPOWER steps related to the issues portrayed on each map.