Brock contest encourages young adults to butt out
Reporter to provide regular updates on her effort to kick the habit
Students and young adults are being encouraged to ‘Leave The Pack Behind’ with a ‘wouldurather’ contest beginning at the end of the month.
Provincewide, people aged 18 to 29 will pledge to butt out on Monday, Jan. 25, and remain smoke-free for six weeks.
The incentive: grand prizes of up to $2,500.
The motivation: A group of 5,200 young adults (so far) from across Ontario who will be going through the process at the same time.
The wouldurather contest is one of several interventions run by Leave The Pack Behind, an organization started at Brock University which has grown to be a provincewide success since its start 16 years ago.
Leave The Pack Behind is now present on every college and university campus and in 36 public health units across Ontario.
The wouldurather contest is aimed at anybody, whether a regular smoker, social smoker, ex-smoker or nonsmoker.
“All the categories are really important because they’re to celebrate everyone,” said Heather Travis, manager of Leave The Pack Behind.
The categories are Quit for Good for regular smokers who want to quit completely, Keep the Count for regular smokers who want to reduce their smoking by half, Party Without the Smoke for regular or social smokers who commit to not smoking when drinking alcohol, and Don’t Start and Win for ex- and non-smokers who commit to not start smoking during the six-week contest.
Contestants register online at wouldurather.ca, where they are asked a series of questions regarding the frequency of their smoking habit and enlist a “buddy” (a friend or family member to offer support).
Over the six-week period, Leave The Pack Behind will be sending weekly support e-mails to contestants.
At the end of the competition, all those who complied with the rules are entered into a random draw for one of the top prizes, which vary depending on the category.
Travis said that in the past the organization has found that most young adults are honest about how they did with their quitting attempt.
The only category that requires more than just the contestant’s word to claim a grand prize is the Quit for Good category because of the bigger prize of $2,500.
When a contestant is selected for the prize, they will have to complete a urine test to claim the cash.
Kelli-an Lawrance, a Brock University associate professor in the department of health sciences and co-creator of Leave The Pack Behind, said the organization’s services and programs, including wouldurather, is really aimed at young people, even those who don’t necessarily consider themselves smokers.
“What we do find with young adults is … they often don’t think of themselves as a smoker even though they smoke cigarettes, because they seem to have this perception that you have to smoke a certain amount of tobacco or at a certain frequency to consider yourself a smoker,” Lawrance said.
“Anyone who even smokes a cigarette — whether they call themselves a smoker or not — can join the contest.”
Lawrance said that the organization has done a lot of research into the success of the contest and believes the statistics are good.
She said while data varies each year, on average about 25 per cent of contestants successfully quit smoking. That’s compared to between two and three per cent who are successful quitting on their own, cold turkey, she said.
Information can be found on the wouldurather and Leave The Pack Behind websites on what withdrawal symptoms to expect and for how long, what positive health effects you might see, as well as resources available to assist quitters. Leave The Pack Behind also offers free nicotine replacement gum and patches, when available, to students and young adults through their website.
The deadline to register for wouldurather is Jan. 24.
For more information and to register, visit www. wouldurather.ca and www. leavethepackbehind.org.
Tribune reporter Franki Ikeman has registered to participate in the wouldurather contest and will be writing weekly updates on the process, starting on Monday, Jan. 25.