NEW STUDY CONCLUDES FILMS INFLUENCE TEENAGE SMOKING
Friday, December 14 2001
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Teenagers who watch their favorite actors smoking in films are likely to take up the habit themselves, according to a new study by Dartmouth Medical School and published today (Friday) in the British Medical Journal. The study, involving 5,000 children between nine and 15, showed that those who had watched films with 50 or fewer occurrences of smoking only 5 percent had tried smoking themselves, but of those who had watched films with more than 150 occurrences of smoking, almost a third had tried cigarettes. James Sargent, who led the study, wrote: "The results indicate that exposure to tobacco use in films is pervasive. More importantly, such exposure is associated with trying smoking, which supports the hypothesis that films have a role in the initiation of smoking." The BMJ article was accompanied by an editorial by Stanton Glantz, professor medicine at the University of California at Berkeley, saying that the study represented "powerful evidence" of a link between teenage smoking and movies. "It is time for the entertainment industry to accept responsibility for its actions and stop serving the interests of tobacco companies," Glantz said.
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