Whether a person chooses to smoke, exercise frequently, or follow a healthy diet, affects health and well-being. Lifestyle is not only a matter of knowledge and choice - evidence suggests that it is strongly influenced by wider factors related to local and personal situations including educational level, personal skills, peer pressure, and social, economic and cultural factors. Access to appropriate information about healthy lifestyles helps people to make choices, but information on its own may not be sufficient to support change. This requires individuals and communities to participate in decisions affecting their lives. Such change can only be brought about by working with individuals and communities in such a way that the problems and solutions are owned by them.
Tobacco use is the single largest cause of premature death and preventable ill-health in Wales.
Smoking is the predominant cause of lung cancer and also increases significantly the risk of mouth, stomach, kidney, bladder and pancreatic cancers. Smokers are more likely to suffer heart disease and chronic bronchitis. Non-smokers who are in contact with smokers also suffer an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease. Pregnant mothers who smoke are more likely to have smaller babies, who are more likely to experience poor health. Cot deaths in infants of mothers who smoked in pregnancy are more common than in babies of non-smoking mothers.