World No Tobacco Day is celebrated on 31st May every year and organized by World Health Organization to spread awareness regarding the risk of consuming tobacco and its products. Tobacco consumption either directly or indirectly affects the environment, society and family. Tobacco consumption causes many types of cancer, such as the larynx mouth, lungs, throat, esophagus, kidney, stomach, bladder, pancreas, cervix, and liver. Approximately 1 crore people are killed every year because of tobacco consumption. Tobacco is not only responsible for affecting health but it also impacts the environment in many ways.
World No Tobacco Day 2023 Theme
The theme of world no tobacco day 2023 is “We need food, not tobacco”, which is a message to tobacco producers to opt for nutritious and sustainable crops by spreading awareness about marketing options. Despite this, the theme emphasizes showing the efforts made by the tobacco industry to replace tobacco with sustainable crops, which leads to the global food crisis.
On the world no tobacco day, policy-makers and government authorities implement suitable strategies, and policies and allow market conditions for tobacco farmers by converting them to growing food crops to check the food crisis. In addition to this, public social welfare associations and green activists join hands to spread awareness regarding the efforts to stop growing tobacco crops.
World no tobacco day theme year by year:
World No Tobacco Day in 2022: Threat to our Environment
World No Tobacco Day in 2021: Commit to quit
World No Tobacco Day in 2020: Tobacco Exposed
2019 World No Tobacco Day: Tobacco and lung health
World No Tobacco Day in 2018: Tobacco and heart disease
Importance of World No Tobacco Day
Around the world, nearly 35 lakh hectares of land is being in use for tobacco farming yearly. The annual deforestation is around 2 lakh hectares by tobacco farming. Tobacco production has a great destructive effect on ecosystems because tobacco farmlands are more vulnerable to desertification as compared to other agricultural activities. Apart from this, growing tobacco needs heavy use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides that may result in soil erosion, and reduce the production of other types of food crops.
If tobacco were produced as a commercial crop, it may impose a risk on the sustainability of food production in low- and middle-income countries. 90% of the world’s largest tobacco-growing regions are low- and middle-income countries and among them, four regions fall into the category of low-income countries with food deficit.
Overall, legislative authorities need to take strict action against the cultivation of tobacco and help farmers to grow other types of food crops. World No Tobacco Day can achieve its aim by conducting campaigns to spread awareness to stop smoking.
How Does Smoking Impact the Health?
Tobacco consumption and smoking can have a bad impact on our health in many ways. It could lead to various problems mentioned below:
certain eye diseases
tuberculosis
diabetes
heart problems
lung diseases
cancer of the digestive system like achalasia cardia (mouth, liver, stomach, colon, rectum, pancreas, and esophagus)
neurological disorders and neurovascular complications along with other neuro-related problems, such as SVID, stroke, and vascular dementia
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
How to Quit Smoking?
Follow the tips given below to quit smoking:
Prepare yourself to quit smoking
The first thing you need to do is decide that you really want to quit smoking. Make a list of support groups that will prevent you from failing. You need to find your reason for quitting smoking that will motivate you to avoid smoking.
Distract yourself when you urge to smoke
Do you know what is the best way to quit smoking? When you urge to smoke, you have to distract yourself by doing something else. You can have sugar-free sweets, play games and listen to music to keep yourself distracted.
Be positive
Imagine yourself reaching your aim of quitting smoking. Think about the health benefits of quitting smoking that will motivate you to avoid the consumption of tobacco and smoking.
Eat healthy snacks
Replace cigarette toxins with healthy snacks, fruit and vegetables. Eat sugar-free mints or candy, it will help you avoid cigarettes. Besides this, you may ask ‘Do lungs heal after smoking’, right? Well, if you stop smoking, your lungs will slowly heal on their own once you quit smoking.
Get active
Engage yourself in physical activities to release endorphins in your body that will give you a positive feeling of well-being. If you don’t have enough time for games, you can follow an exercise routine.
Now, the question arises, Is 1 cigarette a day bad? Well, even one cigarette per day can increase the risk of having coronary heart problems and stroke.
Conclusion
The blog shares the importance of organizing world tobacco day along with different ways to quit smoking and live a healthy life. For more information, subscribe to Personal Care N Heal.
