To Your Health: We want to hear from smokers
By Terry Rindfleisch of the Tribune staff
Ask any doctor, “What is the single most significant thing patients can do to help their health,” the answer always will be, “Stop smoking.”
Smoking contributes to so many cancers and chronic diseases and deaths. The costs to individuals, families and society are enormous.
That’s why it is a no-brainer that the next community Health Living project sponsored by the La Crosse Tribune and WXOW-TV 19 focuses on smoking and tobacco. The Tribune and WXOW-TV spearheaded a “Healthy Living Today, Not Tomorrow" six-month community project started last fall that focused on healthy eating and physical activity.
Starting today, the Tribune and WXOW-TV will report on smoking and its related issues as part of a “Healthy Living Together” community project over the next five months. Every Wednesday -- and other times fron now until February -- we will provide stories on everything from smoking cessation to secondhand smoke.
The series of stories will be broken down into five phases -- looking at the costs and consequeneces of smoking and the addiction, smoking cessation , the different age groups of smokers, the impact of secondhand smoke, smoking policies in public places and in the workplace and best practices to help smokers stop and prevent teens from starting in the first place.
The question is: What can we do as a community to help smokers quit and prevent children from starting to use tobacco?
OK, I know there are smokers thinking, “Just leave me alone,” “We’re always persecuted or at least picked on” and “Besides, we have a right to smoke any place we want; we have rights.”
This series is not an attempt to “pick on” smokers, but an opportunity for a community discussion and offer support for smokers. It is a serious attempt to look at smoking -- the addiction and the consequences. The community has a legitimate interest in smoking issues because of the health care and insurance costs and consequences for smokers, their families and the community.
The “Healthy Living Together” project on smoking and tobacco will be successful only if we have the support and input of smokers. We ask smokers to become involved -- let us know how they feel and how we can help.
In fact, it would be helpful if smokers filled out the following questionnaire and sent it to me:
SMOKERS PROFILE
-- Name, address and phone number
-- What do you smoke and how much do you smoke?
-- How long have you smoked?
-- How many times have you quit? The longest time you didn’t smoke?
-- What tools did you use to try to quit?
-- Why do you think you were not successful at quitting for good?
-- What barriers are there to quitting?
-- How can the community offer more support? What do you need to be successful at quitting?
You can send the responses to me at Terry Rindfleisch, La Crosse Tribune, 401 N. Third St., La Crosse, Wis., 54601, or e-mail them to me at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com
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