More Exposure To Smoking In Movies For Young People In Britain Than In The US

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Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 16 Mar 2010 - 0:00 PDT

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Research published ahead of print in the journal Tobacco Control reports that young Britons see significantly more on-screen smoking in movies than their US peers.

The authors comment that the UK film classification system is to blame. It rates more films as suitable for young people than its US counterpart.

The research team evaluated the number of on-screen smoking or tobacco occurrences in 572 top grossing films in the UK. It included 546 screened in the US plus 26 high earning films released only in the UK.

Then, they divided the total box office earnings of each film by the year's average ticket price. This allowed them to calculate the estimated number of 'tobacco impressions' delivered to cinema going audiences for each film.

A 'tobacco impression' is defined as one person seeing an occurrence of smoking or tobacco on one occasion. It is the cumulative number of impressions which measures of how much the film encourages smoking.

A total of 572 films were assessed. More than 69 percent featured tobacco. Of these, more than nine out of 10 were classified as suitable for adolescents ('15' or '12A') under the UK ratings system.

During the period under study, a total of 5.07 billion tobacco impressions were delivered to UK cinema going audiences. Of these, 4.49 billion (89 percent) were delivered in '15' and '12A' rated films.

In the US, 79 percent of the films rated only for adults ('R') were classified as suitable for young people in the UK. The authors calculate that this meant that young Britons were exposed to 28 percent more smoking impressions in '15' or '12A' rated movies than their US peers.

UK produced films contained on average more instances of smoking than US produced films. But the authors say that the market dominance of US productions meant that Hollywood was responsible for most of the tobacco impressions delivered to UK audiences from 2001 to 2006.

In several countries including the US, evidence suggests that the more smoking young people are exposed to in movies, the more likely they are to start smoking themselves. The authors explain that those who see the most are around three times more likely to take it up than those who see the least.

The authors remark that awarding an '18' rating to films that contain smoking "would create an economic incentive for motion picture producers to simply leave smoking out of films developed for the youth market."

After comparing total box office sales of a random sample of 40 films rated suitable for children and 40 rated '18', they estimated that films targeted at young people grossed 1.75 times as much as those targeting adult audiences.

They comment: "The decision to classify a film as appropriate for youths clearly has economic benefits for the film industry."

They write in closing: "A film classification policy that keeps on-screen smoking out of films rated suitable for youths ... would reduce this exposure for people under 18 years of age and probably lead to a substantial reduction in youth smoking."

"Exposure to smoking in movies among British adolescents 2001-2006"
Stacey J Anderson, Christopher Millett, Jonathan R Polansky, Stanton A Glantz
Online First Tobacco Control
Doi 10.1136/tc.2009.034991
Tobacco Control

Written by Stephanie Brunner (B.A.)
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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