Health Center Teams up with Lamoni Schools to Fight Tar Wars

The Community Health Centers of Southern Iowa and the Lamoni School System have teamed up to fight Tar Wars which is a tobacco-free education program designed to teach kids about the short-term, image-based consequences of tobacco use, the cost associated with using tobacco products, and the advertising techniques used by the tobacco industry to market their products to youth.

Jodi Hill, Clinical Director at the Community Health Centers of Southern Iowa, is presenting this program to students in the third and fourth grades. The program consists of two components: a one-hour classroom presentation and a follow-up poster contest.

Did you know:

Approximately 90 percent of all tobacco users started at or before the age of 18?

• Each day, more than 4,000 children try their first cigarette and another 1,500 become new regular, daily smokers?
• Children are twice as likely as adults to recall tobacco advertising?
• More than five million children alive today will die prematurely from smoking-related illnesses?

Since the development of Tar Wars in 1988, the program has been implemented in all 50 states as well as internationally and has reached more than 7 million children worldwide.