Movies with smoking scenes attract adolescent viewers towards cigarettes, a study published in the latest edition of the journal Pediatrics has said.
NEW DELHI: Movies with smoking scenes attract adolescent viewers towards cigarettes, a study published in the latest edition of the journal Pediatrics has said, adding that removing smoking from youth-rated films can substantially reduce exposure from new box-office hits.
The research conducted by a team of American doctors says that popular actors who frequently smoke in movies could have a major impact on adolescent movie smoking exposure by choosing not to portray characters who smoke.
The study can provide some support to the union health minister Dr Ambumani Ramadoss’s campaign against tobacco. Ramadoss has been advocating a ban on smoking scenes in movies and has written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to form suitable laws to prevent it.
The government is also planning to set up an authority for the effective implementation of anti-tobacco legislation. From June it would be mandatory for all cigarette packets and Gutkha pouches to have pictorial warning about their harmful effects.
The report in Pediatrics claims that though several studies have linked seeing smoking in movies to adolescent smoking, none have determined how much movie smoking adolescents see. However, during this research, it was found that thirty popular movies each delivered more than 100 million gross smoking impressions.
Thirty actors each delivered more than 50 million smoking impressions, such that just 1.5 per cent of actors delivered one quarter of all character smoking to the adolescent sample.
Viewership of movies having smoking scenes was found to be higher with increased age and lower for R-rated movies (restricted movies that can only be seen by an under 17 if accompanied by an adult).
Overall, these movies delivered 13.9 billion gross smoking impressions, an average of 665 to each US adolescent aged 10-14 years. Although this sample’s R-rated movies contained 60 per cent of smoking occurrences, they delivered only 39 per cent of smoking impressions because of lower adolescent viewership.
6,522 US adolescents between 10-14 years were surveyed during the study. 534 movies were mainly rated PG-13 (41%) and R (40%), and 74% contained smoking (3830 total smoking occurrences). On average, each movie was seen by 25% of the adolescents surveyed.
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