And then there is this need to belong. Youths see others smoking and they are encouraged to smoke. She said many youths feel invincible, and they retort that the government would have banned cigarettes if they were so bad for them. It allows peers to convince other youths that tobacco still is bad, and that big tobacco has a lot of power. They can reveal to each other about manipulations by the tobacco industry and how the public has been put in jeopardy for a profit base.
Smoking also plays into youths' obsession with staying thin.
They model what they see in the family, and what they see through advertisements and movies. The advertising media is obviously targeting young people. Kids are targeted because very few adults begin smoking. A Word of Caution About 48,000 African Americans died of smoking-related illnesses in 1988. More than 7 million African Americans smoke, and spend enough money on tobacco in one day to send 2,000 black students to college for a year.