Children learn harmful effects of smoking through performance
Published 12:00 am Monday, March 29, 1999
By STACEY PLAISANCE / L’Observateur / March 29, 1999
LULING – The Big Bad Wolf, three little pigs and Little Red Riding Hood visited students at Luling Elementary School Thursday, illustrating the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes with the theatrical “2 Smart 2 Smoke” program.
Luling students laughed at the chain-smoking Big Bad Wolf, who was unable to blow the three little pigs’ houses down due to coughing fits. Theskit is part of the tobacco prevention program sponsored by UnitedHealthcare.
The skits are performed by the Minneapolis-based National Theatre for Children. One of the two skits is designed for kindergarten through third-grade students, utilizing popular storybook characters, and the other play is geared toward grades four through six.
Using a live, interactive approach to tobacco prevention among youth, the program targets students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The skitsentertain young children while educating them on the hazards of smoking cigarettes.
The plays address the realities of smoking for children as young as age 5 and are being performed at approximately 40 elementary schools in the New Orleans area throughout March and April.
The plays do not discuss abstract issues such as health and morality, but accurately portrays daily effects of smoking, including stinky breath and coughing.
The play for older children explains that young people may be unsuspecting targets of cigarette companies.
With more than 3,000 youth in the United States smoking their first cigarette every day and taking the first step toward becoming regular smokers by the time they reach adulthood, the “2 Smart 2 Smoke” program targets tobacco prevention among the young, said UnitedHealthcare representative Kathryn Kennedy. One-third of these new smokers willeventually die of tobacco-related diseases, she said.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 29 percentof high school students in grades nine through 12 smoke in Louisiana, and 14 percent of these students qualify as frequent smokers.
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