T anna Kinnaman/DN
Waiting for class to begin, Brett Mendlik, age 14, smokes
beside the “catwalk” at Lincoln East High School. Mendlik
began smoking at age 7.
Smoking in health’s way
By Angie Schendt
Staff Reporter
Kristen Tennant, a sophomore
French major, has a pretty
healthy lifestyle. She eats right,
exercises regularly, and wants to lead
a long life and look young as long as
possible.
There’s just one problem.
She smokes.
“I think it is important to be healthy
and active, and smoking is standing in
the way,” Tennant said.
Her habit started as two years ago
during a trip to France. “I would take
a drag from a friend’s cigarette, then I
would bum one, and then I bought my
first pack,” she said.
> Now she can’t stop.
In the past year, Tennant has tried
quitting cold turkey, cutting back, and
using videos and cassettes. The long
est she’s gone without a cigarette is
two weeks.
“It’s been hell,” she said.
4. Tennant is one of many younger
Americans continuing to light up, even
as older Americans concerned about
their health are kicking the habit.
“For youth in general, smoking is
on the rise again,” said Mary Applebee,
program director for the American
Lung Association office in Omaha.
However, one study shows that for
college-aged Nebraskans, smoking
may be going down. According to the
1991-92 Nebraska Behavioral Risk
Factor Survey, about 18 percent of
Nebraska residents ages 18-24 smoke,
down from 26 percent in 1987-88.
Applebee said when smoking ads
were banned from television about 30
years ago, smoking dropped dramati
cally. Forty percent of all adults smoked
30 years ago, and now under 25 per
cent smoke.
“But 30 years ago, the ads were not
targeted towards children,” she said.
Ads today target children through
cartoon characters such as Joe Camel
and product merchandise, she said.
Tobacco companies spend about $6
billion each year on advertising.
Kathy Burklund, health educator
for the Lincoln/Lancaster health de
partment, also blamed advertising for
the number of smokers.
“The massive advertising cam
paigns of tailored ads that make smok
ing look exciting and glamorous make
people want to start,” she said.
Applebee said the party atmosphere
in college prompted some students to
smoke.
“Smoking and drinking sometimes
go together,” she said.
For example, among high school
seniors in America who are heavy
drinkers, 65 percent are smokers. Only
17.2 percent of non-smokers are heavy
drinkers, according to the U.S. Nation
al Institute on Drug Abuse.
The stress of college also makes
some students want to smoke,
Applebee said, as does the lack of
authority figures like parents. Young
people also are more willing to take
risks and experiment.
However, most smokers start under
the age of 18, Applebee said.
President Clinton has presented a
new plan that would make the Food
and Drug Administration regulate tobac
co because it contains nicotine, an addic
tive substance. The plan would limit
advertising and access to cigarettes.
Vending machines that sell ciga
rettes would be banned, and cigarettes
would be placed behind counters so
identification would have to be
checked.
“We are delighted with it,”
Applebee said.
She said she did not know what
effect this would have on the United
States, or whether it would have as big
an effect as the ban 30 years ago on
television advertising.
However, she said, smoking rates
among minors should go down be
cause they won’t have access to ciga
rettes. For example, she said, when the
Omaha police department does com
pliance checks to make sure that to
bacco products are not sold to minors,
smoking goes down.
“We think that old people begin to
see their own mortality, and the onset
of diseases caused by smoking starts to
show,” Applebee said. “Young people
don’t think about the consequences.”
Limits on areas where smoking is
acceptable, like the workplace, restau
rants and airplanes, have prompted
some people to quit, she said.
Burklund said smokers who quit
were prompted by the financial bur
den, the self-satisfaction of quitting, or
encouragement from their children.
However, the biggest reason peo
ple quit smoking is their health. In
1993, smoking accounted for about
419,000 deaths in the United States.
More than half of smokers who die
in their middle age will have been
killed by tobacco. Most of those killed
started in their teenage years and were
not heavy smokers.
Coffee drinkers should try to keep use down
By Sarah Scalet
Senior Editor
The most widely-used drug in the world
can be purchased all over Lincoln. It’s
dirt cheap, it comes in different forms,
and anyone can buy it any time.
Over the years, its opponents have tried to
link it to high blood pressure, cancer, heart
disease and birth defects.
But if you’re one of the many Americans who
use caffeine every day, you don’t necessarily
need to worry about any major health problems.
“The research is really contradictory,” said
Karen Miller, the registered dietician/nutrition
educator at Campus Recreation and the Univer
sity Health Center. “You need to be aware of
those (studies), but I guess there’s no hard-and
fast evidence.”
Still, she said, when it comes to caffeine,
moderation is the key.
“The recommendation is ... two cups or less
of coffee a day,” Miller said, or around 230
milligrams of caffeine.
However, she pointed out that the amount of
caffeine in a cup of coffee varies.
Drip coffee-makers usually make the stron
gest coffee, followed by percolators, then in
stant coffee, Miller said. Decaffeinated coffee
also has a small amount of caffeine—about one
to five milligrams per five-ounce cup.
Tea, soda and chocolate are other common
sources of caffeine, and many over-the-counter
drugs, as well as some prescription drugs, con
tain caffeine.
Miller said most of the health problems asso
dated with caffeine were its side effects.
Brad Buckner, a junior art major at UNL and
a coffee drinker since 1982, had to cut back to
two or three cups of coffee a day.
“I started really experiencing some side ef
fects and decided to cut down,” he said. Too
much coffee had been making him irritable and
sometimes tired.
Kyle Bigham, a senior English major who
used to work at the Coffee House, also knows
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