2016年6月英语六级考试冲刺模拟题及答案(三)

　　Smoking, says Vanessa, is also bonding. You start conversations with strangers when you ask for a light—an attractive social lubricant (润滑剂) for awkward teenagers. But the hub of teen smoking is break-time: it builds a girl’s smoking identity. Sara, 14, says: “That was when it became regular, when I started going out at lunch and break, round the corner from school where everyone smokes. You become less close to people who don’t go out.”

　　Some smoke for emotional reasons: smokers are more likely to be anxious and depressed; having a cigarette is a way of dealing with stress. Twice as many teenage girls suffer from “teen anxiety” as boys, according to a report from the thinktank Demos last month.

　　According to Amanda Amos, professor of health promotion at the University of Edinburgh, there’s also a social class dimension: more disadvantaged teenage girls smoke, and they’re less likely to give up. Then why aren’t boys equally affected? This is where it gets particularly dispiriting. “Top boys” have alternative ways of displaying prestige, such as sport: smoking to look cool conflicts with their desire to get fit. Girls want to be thin more than fit: smoking, they believe, helps keep their weight down. One in four said that smoking made them feel less hungry and that they smoked “instead of eating”.

　　Already in the 1920s the president of American Tobacco realised he could interest women in cigarettes by selling them as a fat-free way to satisfy hunger. The Lucky Strike adverts of 1925, “Reach for Lucky instead of a sweet”, one of the first cigarette advert campaigns aimed at women, increased its market share by more than 200%. Between 1949 and 1999, according to internal documents from the tobacco industry released during litigation in the US, Philip Morris and British American Tobacco added appetite suppressants to cigarettes.

　　The industry has continued to exploit girls’ and women’s anxieties about weight. Since advertising was banned, says Amos, packaging is one of the few ways that tobacco companies can communicate with women. Young women looking at cigarette packs branded “slim” are more likely to believe that the contents can help make them slim. So no prizes for guessing the target market for the new “super-skinny” cigarettes—half the depth of a normal pack of 20—like Vogue Superslims, or the Virginia S.

　　Until recently, few health education campaigns had taken on board the research into why young women smoke and so—unsurprisingly—had little impact. Some even inadvertently encouraged smoking: if you bang on about how bad cigarettes are you make them—to this group—sound good. And there’s no point in trying to scare girls about developing cancer when they’re old: they don’t think they will be.

　　The ones I interviewed know the health risks but use all kinds of strategies to exempt themselves: their uncles smoke and are fine; they’ll stop when they’re pregnant (they disapprove of smoking pregnant women); they’ll stop to avoid wrinkles; they’ll stop when they’re “20 or 30”.

　　The successful campaigns have been radically different. The brilliant late-1990s Florida “truth” campaign, eschewing (避开) worthy public health appeals, played the tobacco industry at its own game. Through MTV ads, a newsletter distributed in record shops, merchandising, and a “truth” truck touring concerts and raves, it attacked the industry for manipulating teens to smoke, repositioning anti-smoking as a hip, rebellious youth movement. As a result, the number of young smokers declined by almost 10% over two years.

　　It doesn’t do to get morally anxious about girls and smoking. For one thing, now that—in year 10—”everyone smokes”, non-smokers and other independent-minded girls are acquiring a cool of their own. Smoking to look cool, it’s even been suggested, risks you being judged a “try-hard”.

　　On the other hand, cancer is the greatest cause of death among women and, as Amos points out, we haven’t seen the full health consequences of this bulge of girls’ smoking yet. Last week Amos addressed the European parliament as part of Europe Against Cancer Week. Female MEPS (members of the European parliament) were shocked when she passed round packets of super-skinnies clearly targeted at girls, and discussed how women need to be empowered not to smoke. Girls need alternatives that make them feel as powerful, independent and attractive as they think cigarettes do. Smoking really is a feminist issue.