Cigarette smoking during childhood and adolescence causes significant health problems among young people, including an increase in the number and severity of respiratory illnesses, decreased physical fitness and potential effects on lung growth and function.
Two-year-old boy, Aldi Rizal, became an international sensation after he was found chain smoking in a remote village of Sumatra in Indonesia, with a daily habit of 40 cigarettes.
Aldi shot to fame in 2010 after he was discovered in a poor village in Sumatra, Indonesia, puffing 40 cigarettes a day while riding his tricycle.
Just two years later the little boy managed to quit with the help of the Indonesian government providing special rehabilitation, but he replaced his smoking addiction with food and drastically gained weight.
Now, at nine-years-old, Aldi has managed to keep away from cigarettes, lose weight and excel at school.
Shocking! 2 year old Indonesian Baby Ardi Rizal smokes 40 cigarettes a day
https://youtu.be/alZXEMC_nrk
Aldi’s shocking smoking addiction led to the Indonesian government launching a campaign to tackle the problem with many picking up the habit in smaller villages.
‘At first when we were weaning Aldi off the cigarettes he would have terrible tantrums,’ Aldi’s mother Diane Rizal, 32, said in 2013. ‘But now he doesn’t want them.’
But the little boy quickly developed a huge appetite without the 40 cigarettes a day, eating fatty foods and consuming three cans of condensed milk each day.
Ms Rizal said Aldi would bang his head on the wall for extra meals and found it was much harder to stop him getting his hands on more food.
Aldi’s family decided to take him to a nutritionist for medical checks and then started him on a strict diet.
The little boy weighed 24 kilograms at just five years old – almost six kilograms above the recommended weight for a child his age.
Paediatric specialist Dr William Nawawi said the smoking could have also contributed to Aldi’s weight issues.
‘The blood will not be able to break glucose from food. This will make Aldi become bigger and bigger,’ he said.
But after four years on a strict diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, Aldi managed to lose most of the weight and has now turned his focus to finishing grade four.
According to American Lung Association, overwhelming majority of adult smokers began smoking before age 18, and many were addicted before they even finished high school. So, why do kids pick up that cigarette in the first place?
1.Their parents are smokers.
2. Peer pressure—their friends encourage them to try cigarettes and to keep smoking.
3. They see smoking as a way of rebelling and showing independence.
4. They think that everyone else is smoking and that they should, too.
5. The tobacco industry has used clever marketing tactics to specifically target teenagers.
6. The price is right—in places where low tobacco taxes have kept the price down, it is easier for kids to afford cigarettes.
7. Most teenagers simply like to try new things, but they aren’t mature enough to think of the long-term consequences.
8. Nicotine is a “feel-good” drug without intoxication.
