How old is ardi rizal

In , a YouTube video of an Indonesian toddler who reportedly smoked 40 cigarettes a day shocked health experts in the country. Ardi Rizal from south Sumatra, who is now nine years old, has since been weaned off cigarettes with the Indonesian government's help, according to a Daily Mail report last year. In , video footage of a Chinese toddler smoking in the street as passers-by did nothing to stop him similarly sparked outrage. The boy, who looked to be no older than three, was seen holding a cigarette and taking puffs on it, while onlookers watched and laughed.

Join ST's Telegram channel here and get the latest breaking news delivered to you. We have been experiencing some problems with subscriber log-ins and apologise for the inconvenience caused. Until we resolve the issues, subscribers need not log in to access ST Digital articles. But a log-in is still required for our PDFs. Skip to main content. Two-year-old Rapi Ananda Pamungka has made international headlines for his chain-smoking habits.

Ng Huiwen. Share gift link below with your friends and family. Link Copied! She blames herself, in part, for Aldi smoking at such a young age because she craved cigarettes while pregnant, whereas with her other children her cravings had been for sour fruits and green mangoes.

But Diana also tells us of her struggle to get Aldi to quit in the middle of a fishing village where smoking is ubiquitous and villagers would give him money to buy cigarettes because he was "cute and funny". Idris, the former head of Bone-Bone, a village in Sulawesi that banned smoking. He started banging his head, he stabbed himself in the knee with a knife," she says.

Diana says she tried every method available to make him quit including hot ointment on cigarette tips and taking Aldi to an isolated river house. I thought, like other kids, it was just an empty threat. He jumped. She shows us the scar on his head. After that I caved in. If he wanted cigarettes he got cigarettes. It was not until a local journalist reported the case to Dr Seto that Aldi received two months of therapy in Jakarta and managed to quit.

He wants to be a doctor and tells his dad to stub out his cigarettes: "I quit and you didn't," he tells him. Throat, teeth …". On the main road of Aldi's village of Teluk Kemang, an enormous billboard blocks the sky advertising Sampoerna — the leading tobacco company in Indonesia and part of Philip Morris International. Increasing restrictions in countries such as Australia means Indonesia — where public smoking and cigarette advertising are largely unregulated — is one of the final frontiers for Big Tobacco.

Point-of-sale advertising here is startling after coming from Australia where cigarettes are banned from even being displayed in shops. In Indonesia TV screens above rows of cigarettes in mini-marts have commercials on endless replay.

Cigarette ads ranked fifth in television advertising spending in A survey found 85 per cent of schools in five cities in Indonesia — including the capital of Jakarta — were surrounded by cigarette ads. Daube does not mince his words. When you look at the magnitude of the problem it is quite catastrophic. Even with conservative estimates we are looking at , deaths a year caused by smoking. Cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world here.

Single sticks, known as loosies, are sold at roadside stalls for the equivalent of a few cents. Thirteen-year-old Sandi Saputra works nights at a nasi goreng fried rice stall in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra, and attends school by day.

While smoking is decreasing globally, it is increasing here. Indonesia already has the highest male smoking rate in the world — 67 per cent according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey — although for cultural reasons the female smoking rate is much lower. About one-third of the population of million smokes, compared with 12 per cent of Australians.

In Indonesia began mandating that 40 per cent of cigarette packets must be covered with the sort of graphic pictorial health warnings — cancerous mouths and tracheotomy holes — familiar to Australian smokers.

It was a rare victory for anti-smoking activists in a country where health reforms pose a dilemma because the tobacco industry is a significant part of the economy. Indonesia is the fifth-largest tobacco leaf producer in the world and Sampoerna its largest taxpayer. It is one of only a few nations not a signatory to the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which stipulates that government policies be protected from the vested interests of the tobacco industry.

He says the health ministry would like to see the warnings enlarged to cover 75 per cent of packs and then move to plain packaging. But it is as if we [Indonesia] are becoming a cigarette sale area. At the end of the day it is about increasing profit when we need to be healthy. But Syarif Abdullah Alkadrie, one of the parliamentarians debating the proposed new law, says the bill is about protecting tobacco farmers. He says 50 per cent of Indonesia's tobacco is imported and lawmakers want this restricted to 20 per cent.

The Indonesian government has made no secret of its irritation with Australia over the plain packaging laws. His weight gain is such a worry that Mrs Rizal and her husband Mohamed chose to seek help from a nutritionist, who said their child is already 6kg overweight. She also said that the effects of his early-age smoking are more likely to see him gain excess fat because of the way nicotine effects hormone, insulin and glucose levels in the human body.

Mrs Rizal says she originally used cigarettes to appease Ardi, adding that she tried the same trick with food when he was showing signs of anger during his nicotine withdrawal.

She also says that, due to the sheer number of people coming in and out of the family home, it is very difficult to prevent Ardi from taking food for himself. His favourite food is apparently condensed milk - consuming at least three cans a day - and his carbohydrate intake is also said to be extremely high.

With his poor nutrition proving such a concern, Mr and Mrs Rizal have put their son on a strict diet, taking advantage of the abundant fresh fish, fruit and vegetables available in the village.