SMOKING AND ITS EFFECT ON AN ATHLETE
             Smoking is a habit that is taken up by almost 30% of the growing teenage population . It not only plagues the young but also the old. When cigarette smoking was first introduced, it was meant to be a pastime. It was also considered to be 'cool','hip' etc. People felt, smoking cigarettes would them socially acceptable but what they did not realize was the human body isn't designed to accept its effects. Smoking deteorates the health of a person but also eventually leads to fatal illnesses.
             During the early thirties and forties, when baseball was becoming popular sport, tobacco companies contracted star players such as Lou Gehrig to portray their success by cigarette smoking but in contrary smokers do not make good athletes. Athletes need to have a lot of endurance and need to perform under stressful conditions. Smoking can evidently affect both of these. When an athlete in particular, starts smoking, hisher airway resistance is increased, which means, the person is utilizing most of the energy for breathing leaving less energy for physical activity. The airway resistance is increased because Co2 (Carbon Monoxide one of the by products as a result of smoking) occupies the space of oxygen in the red blood cells, leaving less oxygen for the working muscles. The overall effect is that the smoker has less oxygen available for metabolism, which makes the athlete work twice as hard . Fatigue sets in and endurance is lessened because of which performance suffers.
             There have been many studies and research done to show that if you smoked you were more prone to be less active. A professor in United States ran an experiment, which comprised of a group of smokers and non-smokers, were asked to run a marathon. The result was, the distance covered in the race was inversely related to the daily cigarette consumption . The more cigarette the person smoked the worse he/she performed....