Turns out, tobacco is not a beauty trick. We found out that it doesn’t make us look glamorous or cool. In fact, it hurts our looks.
Tobacco companies try to exploit our interest in the way we look. Advertisements for tobacco and the portrayal of tobacco use in movies and on television are crafted to make us think that smoking would make us look glamorous, sexy, sophisticated, thin, independent, rebellious… whatever they think we want. Not only will smoking not do that, the real deal is that using tobacco damages our appearance. In addition to making our hair, hands and breath stink (other people can smell it even if people who smoke can’t) and yellowing our teeth and fingernails, smoking makes us to look old too soon.
Many of us started to smoke as teens or preteens because we wanted to look older, but we were hoping it would make us to look 18 or 21, not really old. It’s like that saying, be careful what you wish for – you just might get it. Smokers get to look older, all right. They develop more wrinkles, and their wrinkles are deeper, than people who don’t smoke. They start wrinkling at a younger age, too.
The Task Force for Tobacco-Free Women and Girls was instrumental in the development of a unique computerized demonstration of the effect that smoking can have on people’s future appearance. April® Age Progression Software shows participants two side-by-side versions of themselves in the future – one picture illustrates the person aging through several decades, based on the average way that people age, and the other picture includes the premature wrinkling and unhealthy skin tone that smoking causes. The difference is striking. See the difference here as this 16 year-old girl grows up. Which aged face would you choose?
What to do? Here are some options:
Some people who smoke decide that they will “just” go for cosmetic surgery when they decide they have too many wrinkles. Here is some information they need right now.
Plastic surgery is expensive and facelifts are not covered by health insurance.
Many plastic surgeons will not perform surgery on a person who smokes, so patients have to quit smoking to get the surgery that they wouldn’t want if they had quit sooner.
Studies have shown that it is less difficult to stop smoking sooner rather than later, so stopping now will be easier and eliminate the need for that surgery.
Why do most plastic surgeon’s require their patients to be tobacco-free?
--Because tobacco use interferes with the healing process.
--Good healing is important to good outcomes in cosmetic surgery.
BOTOX® is an expensive, temporary fix for a permanent problem.
Wrinkles aren’t removed, they are smoothed out for a few months because the facial muscles become paralyzed by injections of toxin from Clostridium botulinum bacteria. (Remember being told not to eat food from cans that were dented or swollen because of botulism? It’s that same poison.) Each BOTOX® treatment requires many needle injections into the face. For the couple of months that it is working, the person’s face stays pretty much unexpressive -- she cannot frown or show surprise or happiness because her facial muscles are frozen. Then it wears off and the wrinkles are back.
Stopping all tobacco use will minimize the damage. It’s not easy but many of us have done it and those who haven’t done it yet can! There’s more help now than ever before for people who want to become tobacco-free.
More about appearance…
Tobacco ads don’t say it in words, but they include images designed to make us think that smoking will make us thin or help us to control our weight. Subliminal messages are used in hopes that we won’t realize that we are being manipulated. The models are always very thin, the cigarettes are described as “thin,” the pack is “slender” and lots of vertical lines are typical.
It is true that using tobacco can increase a person’s metabolism, but hey, look around… it obviously isn’t “the answer” for weight control because there are plenty of overweight smokers. And also lots of thin people who don’t use tobacco.
There are strategies to use when quitting, to keep any weight gain at a minimum.
If food is used to quell oral cravings, make it low-calorie, nutritious snacks such as carrot sticks, celery sticks.
A prop such as a toothpick, straw or cinnamon stick is often better.
Drink plenty of water – keep a bottle or glass nearby at all times.
Find a way to get a half hour of exercise every day – walking is great! Hobbies that keep hands busy are good.
Stop-smoking medications might make a difference. There are quite a few choices:
