According to a recent survey, it is not cigarette advertising that attracts children to tobacco more than anything else, neither is it adults around them setting a bad example, it is the movie industry. Advertising and adult examples do have an influence, but nowhere as big as movies showing people smoking. Tobacco use in movies are the biggest promoters of underage smoking in the USA, say American children who smoke. 38% of 6,500 under fourteens say they took up the vice because of the way tobacco was portrayed in movies.

In a recent study it was found that 74% of movies show people smoking.

The researchers found that there were 21 factors that lured children into smoking. Top of the list were movies, then TV and then parental permissiveness.

The study was carried out by researchers at Chicago’s Dartmouth Medical School. You can read about it in the journal Pediatrics.

They found that about 10% of 10-14 year old children in the USA smoke. 22% of the country’s adult population smoke.

Children are subjected to so many images of people smoking in movies, on TV, in magazines, large events that the impression for them is that smoking is common and acceptable, say the researchers. They added that the reasons children start smoking are numerous – it is not possible to pin it down to one thing, many factors are involved.

Some organisations in the USA say that the best way to shield children from smoking in movies is to give them an adult rating (an R in the USA, an X in the UK).

Virtually all smokers start to smoke during their teens. Less than 50% of smokers ever manage to give it up permanently.

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today