Lungs of people who smoke

Let’s read a story about smoking and investigate how it can affect the health of the people who inhale tobacco smoke.

I am 30 years old. I have been smoking since I was 16 years old. Most of my friends at school smoked. I tried my first cigarette with Kamal bhaiyya. He was my neighbour. I looked up to him for everything. He was good at sports and in studies too. He even played for our school hockey team.

For the first few years I smoked 4-5 cigarettes every day. I never smoked at home. While coming back from school I would stop at the bus stand before my house and smoke with my friends.  

 

I started smoking more when I moved to city for work. It became a part of my life, a habit just like eating food and sleeping.

When my mother found out that I smoked she told me that I would get addicted. She tried to convince me to quit smoking. I knew that some people tried to quit smoking but were not able to. But I never thought that smoking was a problem for me. I thought that I would be able to leave the habit whenever I wanted.

 

Last evening I took my 5 year old daughter to the doctor. She has had difficulty in breathing and bad cough for many days. Doctor told us that she has asthma, possibly because of inhaling smoke. On the way back home. I decided that I would never touch a cigarette again. It is proving harder than I imagined. I never thought that my habit of smoking would cost my daughter's health. I have been so wrong; smoking is a problem for not just me but also my family. 

The writer’s daughter in this story had difficulty in breathing and would cough regularly. Inhaling smoke can often cause people to have breathing problems. You might have noticed that smokers usually start panting (getting breathless) after even a little bit of exercise.
 

Do the lungs of smokers function as well as the lungs of non-smokers? Let’s try to answer this question through an experiment.