The Snapper - News
Issue: 4/15/04
Cessation workshops offer students alternatives
By
Chrystal Meier
The Wellness Center offered a Smoking Cessation Workshop on April 7, 2004, in an effort to help smokers on campus to quit smoking. The program provides students with advice and encouragement along with resource materials to help them quit smoking. The workshop includes a short video of MU students telling their stories of how they quit smoking. The presentation also includes quitting strategies and tips to help students follow through with their decisions to quit. Students are also encouraged to solicit support from friends and family members while they are in the process of quitting smoking.
The Wellness Center and SWAT, Students Working Against Tobacco, encourage students who want to quit smoking to attend a workshop or to obtain a "Quit Kit" from the Wellness Center, the Witmer Infirmary, or the Counseling Center. The workshop program was developed during the winter of 2003 and was first implemented in September 2004.
The Smoking Cessation Workshop is based on information from the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and has been offered about once a month during the fall and spring semesters. The times of the day that the workshop is offered vary by month to help students find a time of day that fits their schedules best.
"The Wellness Center and SWAT really want to help smokers," says Martha Glass, coordinator of the Wellness and Women's Program. Reasons to quit smoking range from health concerns, encouragement from friends or family members, a desire to save money or other reasons. No matter what a student's reason is to quit smoking, the workshops and available resources can help students identify their reasons for quitting along with a target goal of how long it will take to quit.
The goal of the Smoking Cessation Workshops is to help students begin the process of smoking cessation. Feedback about the workshops is encouraged in an effort to improve programs and help the program better serve the needs of smokers who want to quit.
The semester may be coming to an end, but students who want to quit smoking did not miss their last opportunity to get resources on how to quit. The Wellness Center, located in the Montour House, has a variety of print and video resources along with "Quit Kits" to help students formulate a quitting strategy. Brochures on tobacco use also may be obtained at the Witmer Infirmary.