Smoking app shows how our looks can be affected by cigarettes

Have you ever wanted a sneak peek into the future and see how you could appear in years to come? Well now you can with the help of a new smartphone app that gives smokers the chance to take a deep breath and potentially be horrified at how cigarettes will destroy their looks if they do not quit smoking.

The new app, available for free on Android and iPhone, has been devised by the NHS and goes by the name of ‘The Smoking Time Machine’. It could be viewed as a clever and original method of persuading youngsters not to start pumping into their bodies the 4,000 chemicals that are contained in just a single cigarette. The app may also persuade current smokers to quit if they are shocked at how their looks will be severely ravaged in the near future.

Kate Norman, from Cumbria Partnership NHS Trust, who was responsible for the free app in conjunction with its month-long stop smoking campaign, said: “Young people – and teenagers especially – don’t necessarily think the obvious consequences of smoking such as cancer and lung disease is going to happen to them. But this app uses their face and shows them how they will look. It’s something that is very close to home and hard to ignore.”

Merely by using a photograph of your face, the app will age your appearance to depict the damaging effects in 20 years’ time if you smoke, or continue to carry on the habit. The altered picture then shows the user to have an unhealthy, grey appearance to the skin, significantly deeper wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, and longer jowls. The pictures may be stored and shared amongst friends as a small reminder of what damage cigarettes will do to their current younger and fresher appearance.

Forensic artist Auriole Prince of digital marketing company ‘Change my Face’, commented: “This is the first time Smoking Time Machine has been used in a public health campaign and we think the app works brilliantly as a shock tactic to show people what will happen to their appearance if they carry on smoking.”

The literature produced by Cumbria Partnership NHS Trust will further worry smokers when they read it and learn that the same chemicals contained in cigarettes are also in highly hazardous substances such as jet fuel, embalming fluid, bleach and rat poison!

The Trust’s research discovered that around 40% of frequent smokers manage to develop an addiction prior to the age of 16. Therefore, the shock element of this new smartphone could have an impact with image-conscious teenagers.

For all smokers over the age of 18, why not quit smoking today with the help of the smoking cessation medication Champix, and help to prevent the degradation of your looks! All you have to do is complete the simple four-step online questionnaire, and if the online consultation is approved by one of our Doctors, they will write a prescription that will be dispensed by our in-house pharmacy team, dispatched to you at your home, your place of work, or where ever you choose, discreetly within 24 hours. The medication equates to just £75.00 per pack.