In recognition of last week's

Great American Smokeout, Dr. Pendergrast offers the following top five

reasons why teens should not start smoking:

- Smoking gives you yellow

teeth, stained fingernails and that funny smell on your clothes, in your

car, everywhere. "This is the top reason in my book," said Dr.

Pendergrast. "Want to look cool? The stains and odor from cigarette

smoking aren't cool at all."

- Imagine a 5 oz. jam

jar filled with tar. Now imagine your lungs filled with that same amount

of tar. "If you smoke for one year, that's the amount of tar

your lungs will have processed," said Dr. Pendergrast.

- If you smoke a pack

of cigarettes a day, over the course of a year, you would have spent enough

money to buy 79 CDs, a state-of-the-art DVD-recorder plus a flat-screen

TV, 22 single-day passes to Disneyworld or season tickets to the Seattle

Supersonics. "At roughly $3.25 a pack, cigarettes would cost you

$1,186.25 over the course of one year," said Dr. Pendergrast. "There

are better things to spend your money on, things that don't harm

your health."

- Once you start, it's

very, very hard to quit. "There's a reason why there are so

many anti-smoking products, seminars and books out there - it's

not easy to find one single solution for quitting," said Dr. Pendergrast.

"It takes most people several tries before they can quit - and

in most cases, they still live with the cravings everyday. Every smoker

I've worked with has said they wished they never started."

- Smoking kills -

slowly but surely. "Once you take that first puff, the damage to

your lungs begins. Would you knowingly ingest poison? Then don't smoke,"

said Dr. Pendergrast.

MCG Health System is composed

of three separate organizations - MCG Health, Inc. and the clinical

services offered by the faculty employees of the Medical College of Georgia

and the members of the Physicians Practice Group. The physicians of MCG

Health System are community physicians and faculty employees of the Medical

College of Georgia and the Physicians Practice Group, not employees of

MCG Health Inc. MCG Health, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation operating

the MCG Medical Center, MCG Children's Medical Center, the MCG Sports

Medicine Center, MCG Ambulatory Care Center, the Georgia Radiation Therapy

Center and related clinical facilities and services. MCG Health, Inc.

was formed to support the research and education mission of the Medical

College of Georgia and to build the economic growth of the CSRA, the state

of Georgia and the Southeast by providing an environment for faculty employees

of the Medical College of Georgia and the Physicians Practice Group and

community physicians to deliver the highest level of primary and specialty

health care. For more information, visit www.MCGHealth.org.

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