Teen Smoking and the Brain

Statistics tell us that each and every day here in the United States, around sixteen hundred children and teens under the age of eighteen try their first cigarette. Statistics also tell us that each and every year, almost half a million Americans die prematurely as a result of health conditions related to smoking, or from exposure to second-hand smoke. This is why we need to be engaged in ongoing efforts to help kids steward their God-given bodies by avoiding smoking of any type. British researchers are now pointing to new findings that teens who had started smoking by fourteen years of age had significantly less grey matter in the section of the brain known as the left frontal lobe, which is the part of the brain linked to impulse control, decision making, and rule breaking. Parents, God has given us the responsibility to raise our kids in ways that lead to a physically healthy adulthood. Yes, they will make their own decisions, but we need to educate them from a young age regarding smoking’s dangers.