Anti-Smoking Regulation Use New Social Media
The Ontario Lung Association has turned to new social media to get the province’s young people to quit smoking. Launching both a YouTube video and an iPhone application Thursday, the association hopes to reach out to a younger group of smokers. The tongue-in-cheek YouTube video features would-be smokers lifting weights instead of Beratt cigarettes, while the app is modelled after a game of hockey or golf.
The game gets players to exhale onto the interactive screen of their smart phones, moving a puck or a ball into a goal zone to score. It also includes encouraging messages from Barrie Shepley, a former Canadian Olympic Triathlon coach. The association hopes would-be quitters will pick up the game the next time they get hit by the urge to smoke.
“We wanted something that would be fun,” said Andrea Stevens Lavigne, vice-president of the association. “The iPhone app is really just a fun distraction, but it also provides a message about lung capacity since you need a lot of it to succeed at the game.”
She said the longer someone avoids smoking, the more their lung capacity will increase, and they will see that improvement when they start to score higher points in the game.
The association has been trying to appeal to young people because they have the highest proportion of smokers of any age group in Ontario.
Among people ages 19 to 29, 33 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women are smokers.
Lavigne also said the association chose social media as the platform for a message about quitting smoking because young people are already using it.
“We need to reach out to them in ways they’re already involved,” she said.
But the association isn’t limiting itself to promotion through social media. For a second year, it is also teaming up with GoodLife Fitness to offer free exercise sessions with a personal trainer at 20 locations in Ontario.
The program, called Quit & Get Fit, runs for six weeks with two sessions per week. Registration starts Monday at the Quit and Fit website and the program continues until the end of April.
In Windsor, the GoodLife at Devonshire Mall and another one at Tecumseh Mall are offering the program.
Luis Mendez, the fitness manager at the GoodLife at Tecumseh, helped a few participants during last year’s pilot program of Quit & Get Fit.
He said the program works through a combination of improving a prospective quitter’s fitness and also by providing counselling and support. By the end of last year’s program, almost half the participants had stopped smoking.
“You have to know the individual — what makes them want to quit?” he said. “And what are their trigger points, what makes them want to relapse? Do they smoke cheap cigarettes with a coffee in the morning, do they smoke socially, or when they’re stressed? So you really have to get to know them.”
This year, 12 spots are available at each site, and afterward GoodLife will give participants a free two-month membership at their fitness club.
Lavigne said the mix of using social media and a concrete exercise program are ways of encouraging people who want to quit smoking. And trainers help with one-on-one support.
“A lot of it is just about personal support, just being there and asking how they’re doing,” she said.
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