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After seeing the viral YouTube video of a two-year-old Indonesian boy who chain smoked 40 cigarettes a day, Belgian photographer Frieke got an idea for this photo series titled Smoking Kids.
Tom Tack of I Love Belgium wrote:
Titled “The beauty of an ugly addiction”, photographer Frieke Janssens confronts viewers with questions about the general smoking ban introduced in Belgium some months ago. Surrealistic, melancholic and theatrical but especially controversial pictures of smoking kids are used to visualise the contradiction of the unhealthy cigarette and the immense attraction of smoking.
The children, aged four to nine, are shameless posing while enjoying their cigarette or cigarillo. So why kids? By portraying adults as children all the attention went to the smoking. An adult would draw to much attention to the portrayed person. Thus these portraits evoke question such as: is the smoking ban the right way to get rid of an absurd addiction and are smokers treated like little kids who can’t make the difference between good and bad?
Lest you think they're clever photoshoppery, here's the behind the scenes video clip of the photo shoot:
But parents, relax! The cigarettes aren't real. They're made out of cheese (I didn't know that you can get cheese to smoke like that!).
Links: Smoking Kids at I Love Belgium - Thanks Tom! | More photos at The Black Harbor | Frieke Janssens Photography on Facebook
It goes without saying that smoking is bad for you, but as it turns out, when you smoke can affect just how much of a health impact a cigarette could have on your body. Two new studies have shown that smokers who light up first thing in the morning are more likely to get lung, neck and head cancers than those who wait to take the first puff.
Link Via Geekosystem
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This 1980s PSA from the lovable Star Wars droids is so hilariously nonsensical that it almost works. Artoo could conceivably smoke all he likes, though I don’t know why he’d bother, but he won’t–for the children. Love it. I think a reprisal is in order, though, because “You don’t want to sell me death sticks, ” and “You want to go home and rethink your life,” would be much more effective. Assuming the Jedi Mind Trick works via television.
rougeliter via G.TDW
Comments Off Apparently, this is a sport, although it’s probably fallen out of favor in recent decades. This 1969 video from Cumberland, UK, shows four men trying to finish a full pipe the fastest. Place your bets. -via The Presurfer
You’d think that being in a cage would make it hard to feed a smoking habit, but that’s not the case in Malaysia. Here’s the shocking story of how visitors to the Johor Baru zoo fed Shirley, a 25-year-old orangutan cigarettes, just to watch her smoke:
The government-run zoo in in Johor Baru has erected a ‘no smoking’ sign but that will do precious little to stop the sad practice while attendants turn their backs on it.
Shirley spends much of her sad existence tearing apart drinks cans and chewing on food wrappers thrown at her by visitors.
She regularly reaches through the bars of her cage to beg for cigarettes.
The Daily Mail is there: Link
It may sound paradoxical for you, but smoking may actually benefit society by causing smokers to die younger, before they cost the health care system more:
Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it does not save money, according to a new report.
It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that
preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars."It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
More infographic about cigarette and smoking, and taxation thereof: Link
I know that Chinese people like to smoke cigarettes, but just how much they like to smoke is pretty astounding to learn: over 2 trillion sticks of cigarettes a year! That’s more than 1,500 cigs for every man, woman and child there!
China has 300 million smokers (that’s about the entire population of the United States, by the way). It’s been estimated that 60% to 75% of all Chinese men smoke, puffing an average of 15 cigarettes per day.
In 2001, a study published in the British Medical Journal tracked the rising death toll from smoking and extrapolated a particularly chilling statistics:
"Two-thirds of all the young men in China, but, as yet, few of the young women, become smokers. Half the smokers who persist will eventually be killed by their habit," said Oxford University epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto, who led the study.
"On present smoking patterns, about one-third of all the young men in China will eventually be killed by tobacco." (Source)
Yet, tobacco continues to be a booming industry there, growing at a brisk 10% rate year after year.
Did you know that Pez was originally invented as an anti-smoking treat? Lauren Donaldson of MSN’s Deslish has that and 9 other weird origins of our favorite food:
Kids and adults alike collect PEZ dispensers to store the beloved candies. But PEZ wasn’t always so fruity. It was developed as a peppermint candy more than 70 years ago in Vienna and marketed as a cigarette substitute. (In fact, the name PEZ was derived from the German word for peppermint: PfeffErminZ). Although PEZ has come a long way from its anti-smoking roots, it’s still a popular treat. Today, more than 3 billion PEZ candies are consumed annually in the U.S.
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Many communities have enacted smoking bans in public places, some of which have been in effect for several years. How is that affecting our overall health? According to an analysis of studies, the bans are significantly cutting the rate of heart attacks in those communities.
“By lumping 11 studies together, we have increased the certainty that smoking bans really do reduce the risk of heart attack,” lead author Dr David G Meyers (University of Kansas School of Public Medicine, Kansas City) told heartwire. Meyers and colleagues report their findings online September 21, 2009 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Meyers says there are some additional messages from this review. Although they found, on average, a 17% reduction in AMI, this figure is “deceptive,” he says, because they also showed—in longer-term studies—a 26% decrease in heart attacks per year that the ban had existed. So this proves “the longer a community bans smoking, the greater the effect.” It also appears the people who seem to derive the greatest benefit from the bans are younger and often predominantly female—likely those working in the hospitality and entertainment industry, he says.
(image credit: Flickr user bennylin0724)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
This video is College Humor‘s foray into the realm of anti-smoking public service announcements. It turns out the cost to society for smoking is much, much worse than cancer and smelly carpets.
Via Geekologie
Psst, parents: are you sick and tired of your whiny baby? Want to raise a tough kid that will take on real life and beat it so bad that it screams uncle? Here's the Neatorama guide on how to toughen up your child:
First of all, you've got to start right. Remember, whatever doesn't kill your offspring makes him or her tougher.
Melissa Williamson, 35, of Roanoke, Virginia, got the right idea - and from the looks of it, the noise is the last thing the baby has to fear: Link
Forget a cozy and cute playpen - be sure to awaken your baby's animal instinct by raising him in a cage. Better yet, an electrified one, like this piece titled Mama Tried by Jack Daws.
Next, surround your baby with weapons of all kinds. Like these stainless steel baby crib and stroller worthy of a lil' Klingon, created by Chinese artist Shi Jinsong - via Invizible Red.
Next, your kid needs street cred, and nothing spells bad ass like knuckle tattoos:
This one is done by Italian photography company LSD
s.l.r (Previously on Neatorama),
but you can get your own Baby
Tattoos
Daily ablutions is a necessity, even for tough kids. But don't coddle them with that no-tears shampoo. After decades of coddling young kids, even Johnson & Johnson got the message with their new shampoo: Nothing But Tears! (Previously on Neatorama)
All parents with tough kids know that pets are a must. But dogs and cats are for sissy kids. Tough kids play with ... cobra!
And
all that is for naught if you don't keep a meticulous record ... but who
needs a cutesy memory book if you can have this one: Baby's
First Tattoo: A Memory Book for Modern Parents
For years parents have been buying baby books to document all the precious moments in their new baby's life -- Baby's First Tooth, Baby's First Haircut, Baby's First Step. What have been ignored for too long are those "alternative" precious moments that really should be written down, celebrated, and remembered -- Baby's First Projectile Vomit, Baby's First Tantrum in a Crowded Grocery Store, Baby's 10,000th Dirty Diaper. Otherwise you might forget them and think of becoming parents once again.
How about you? Got any suggestions on how to raise a tough kid? Let's see 'em in the comments ... or my kid will go to your house and beat you up!
I feel awful for the life this child has ahead of him. Addicted at 2, he’ll probably lose his voice by 15 and have cancer by 20.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
