Northwestern Health Unit creates contest for quitters

Valkyrie Clark
Student Reporter

In the past, there have been “Quit and Win” smoking contests for adults, now there’s one for students.
The Northwestern Health Unit and nine Northwestern Ontario high schools have teamed up to organize a youth cessation contest called “Don’t Start/Quit and Win”.
There are over 600 students, either attempting to quit and pledging not to start smoking. 101 students from RRHS are participating. Twenty-nine of them are actually trying to quit. That is sixty-two percent of the students at RRHS.
Some of the people who are quitting are having a difficult time. A few quitters are experiencing some symptoms that are usual for people who have been smokers for a long time. Most are happy to finally be quitting, but are going insane from the lack of indulging the habit.
The Northwestern Health Unit along with the RRHS student council are promoting this contest.The student council is supporting those students trying to quit and encouraging them to stay smoke-free. They are providing alternatives to smoke breaks, like carrots, grapes, fruit and fruit bars. Quit kits and booklets are available to help those who need it. The kits provide sugar-free gum and information about smoking to help keep the smokers smoke-free. All of these smoke-free incentives are provided by the Health Unit.
The student council also hosted an assembly at the school and showed a series of anti-smoking commercials. They continued on to introduce the “Don’t Start/Quit and Win” contest to all of the students. They gave free water bottles to those people who signed up that very day.
The contest started on October 15th and will run until November 15th. There will be two prizes awarded to two winners in each school on November 18th. The two winners will be one who quit and one who did not start smoking. The prizes are Panasonic portable CD SL-MP36C players. The school that has the highest percentage of participants, wins a free Much Music dance.
Heidi Ivall, a health educator at the Health Unit, said, “The contest gives students a good incentive to quit smoking, or stay smoke-free. Some students have the will power to quit and in doing so, stay clear of a product that kills 45,000 Canadians every year.”