The Effect of Smoking on Adolescents’ Appetite for the Age (13-18) and its Relationship to Some Variables

Abstract

Nutritional requirements increase for people in general and for adolescents in particular between the agesof (13-18) years to increase the speed of growth, as adolescence is considered a rapid stage after childhood.In general, the importance and necessity of nutritional elements remain, as they affect the growth of theteenager’s body, so the amount of food that the teenager eats should be increased in proportion to hisnutritional needs for this stage, however during this stage, he may be exposed to some practices related tothe dietary approach and among these practices smoking, so the aim of the research is to identify the effectof smoking on the nutrition of male adolescents aged (13-18) years and its relationship to some variables,the results indicated a decrease in the average of the daily intake of a teenager smoker of age (13-15)and (15-18) of all proteins, carbohydrates, energy, vitamin B12, B6, E, C, A, folic acid, iron, calcium andphosphorous, respectively for smokers adolescents aged (15-13) years, while the rates of these elementswere high among non-smoking adolescents for the same age group when compared with global courses.It was also observed through the results, the continued failure to meet the prescribed daily need for thesenutrients for adolescent smokers aged 15-18 years, as the levels of nutrients reached, respectively, while therates of these elements were reached in non-smoking adolescents for the same category, The statistics of theWorld Health Organization for the year 2008 indicated that smoking is more prevalent among adolescentsaged (13-15) and (15-18) years for both sexes. Yemen was the first in the world and Kuwait in the Gulf interms of youth smoking.