Is Cameron Diaz Advocating For Smoking, While Promoting Healthy Living?
Cameron Diaz recently became an author when she penned her The Body Book which she has been promoting all over, but comments she made on the E! show Chelsea Lately have left some wondering if she is speaking out of both sides of her mouth, after saying that it’s okay to smoke every once in a while.
Everyone knows that smoking can have deadly consequences such as lung or throat cancer and many are calling Cameron Diaz disingenuous for her comments regarding smoking.
In the controversial statements, which seem to contradict the theme of her book — healthy living — the 41-year-old former heavy smoker said: “I think one cigarette every once in a while is not going to kill you.”
The blonde starlet reportedly smoked up to 20 cigarettes per day until her parents told her she needed to stop and set a good example.
According to the American Lung Association:
“Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable disease and death worldwide. Smoking-related diseases claim over 393,000 American lives each year. Smoking cost the United States over $193 billion in 2004, including $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in direct health care expenditures, or an average of $4,260 per adult smoker”
The site also say that chronic lung disease amounts to 73 percent of smoking-related conditions on those who currently smoke and even for those who have quit — like Cameron Diaz claims — chronic lung disease “accounts for 50 percent of smoking-related conditions.”
Smoking not only harms every organ in a person’s body, according to the organization, but is responsible for conditions such as lung cancer and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), chronic bronchitis and emphysema and a major cause of coronary heart disease, stroke and a number of other serious health conditions.
In other words smoking is not something worth promoting according to Deborah Arnott of the British health charity ASH, who has vocally criticized Cameron Diaz views on smoking, calling her “deluded.”
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Arnott said: “Cameron Diaz is deluding herself. One cigarette might not kill you, but before you know it you’re smoking five a day and that’s all you need to give you cancer.”
Cameron Diaz has said her new book is not about dieting, but having a healthy lifestyle that includes exercise on a regular basis and eating healthful food. Ultimately, she wants people to appreciate and be happy with their bodies like she is, “I like the way I look now, better than when I was 25, I’m okay with getting older. I like it.”
[Image via Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images Entertainment]
