EXPOSURE TO SMOKING IN MOVIES INFLUENCES TEENS TO BECOME LIFE-LONG SMOKERS
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Exposure to Smoking in Movies Influences Teens to Become Life-Long Smokers
9/5/2007
Statement from American Legacy Foundation® President and CEO Dr. Cheryl G. Healton
Smoking in movies continues to influence American youth to become addicted to one of the most deadly products legally available for consumption. A study released Monday in the journal Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows a direct link between viewing smoking in movies and established adolescent smoking. Conducted by Dr. James Sargent at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire, and funded by the National Cancer Institute and American Legacy Foundation, the study, Exposure to Smoking Depictions in Movies: Its Association with Established Adolescent Smoking, is the first national study to indicate that exposure to smoking in movies predicts whether young people will become life-long smokers.
According to the study, youth that are exposed to movie smoking double their risk of becoming established smokers, who are at high risk to suffer the consequences of adult tobacco addiction. This research adds to the growing amount of evidence showcasing the significant negative effect of depictions of smoking in Hollywood movies on young people and heightens public health concerns. Past research shows that 400,000 people die each year from tobacco-related disease, about the same number of youth smokers that movies recruit annually.
Legacy has been working for several years with its colleagues in the public health community to address the important issue. Parents and adults also agree that movie smoking can influence kids to smoke. Just recently, both the President’s Cancer Panel and the Institute of Medicine Report recognized this and recommended that meaningful efforts be made to eliminate or counter exposure to the billions of smoking impressions that Hollywood leaves with young movie-goers.
Earlier in the spring, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced a new ratings clarification to consider smoking as a factor when it rates movies, but the action failed to address the concerns of major public health groups and parents nationwide. We have seen the results of this empty policy; the first movie, “Hairspray,” was tagged with a PG ratings descriptor to include “momentary teen smoking.” These MPAA actions will have little impact on youth exposure to movie smoking.
What we need to do to effect meaningful change is to keep smoking out of the G, PG and PG-13 films currently influencing our youth. As the summer movie blockbuster season comes to a close, we have witnessed some positive changes in the landscape in this arena.
Thanks to the efforts of Congressman Ed Markey and advocates around the country, two major media companies have implemented policies that represent a positive shift in the way that Hollywood addresses youth exposure to the negative tobacco images in movies. The Walt Disney Company, the most recognized global family entertainment company, last month pledged to Congress that “depictions of cigarette smoking in future Disney-branded films will be non-existent.” Disney has also agreed to “place an anti-smoking PSA on DVDs of any future film that does depict cigarette smoking.” In light of this announcement, we also learned that Universal Pictures has implemented a policy that “presumes that no smoking incidents should appear in any youth-rated film produced by Universal Pictures…”
Despite this progress, there is still much work to be done. What the Foundation supports – along with a host of other organizations including the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics – are evidence-based policies that will limit or eliminate smoking on the screen. Those Smoke Free Policies include the elimination of smoking from G, PG and PG-13 films by rating movies R if they contain smoking, with the exception of when tobacco use and its dangers and consequences are accurately portrayed or when it is necessary to portray a real historical figure; certification of no pay-offs, by posting a certificate in movie credits declaring that no talent or members of the production team received anything in exchange for using or displaying tobacco; ending the identification of tobacco brands in any movies scenes and requiring strong anti-smoking ads to run before films with any tobacco presence regardless of its rating.
Established Smoking
Nearly five-thousand U.S. adolescents aged 10 to 14 years were followed over a period of two years to determine their exposure to movie smoking and whether they were considered “established smokers,” which researchers defined as the adolescent having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their short lifetime. Established smoking was also measured by other characteristics of smoking and addiction, including whether or not the adolescent considered him/herself a smoker or if the adolescent experienced strong cravings to smoke, among other measures. The study showed that exposure to smoking in movies predicts established smoking; all else being equal, adolescents with high movie smoking exposure were about twice as likely to become established smokers. The effects of movie smoking persisted throughout three surveys as the adolescents aged over a 2-year period.
The American Legacy Foundation® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use, especially among vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco, through grants, technical assistance and training, partnerships, youth activism, and counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns. The foundation’s programs include truth®, a national youth smoking prevention campaign that has been cited as contributing to significant declines in youth smoking; EX®, an innovative public health program designed to speak to smokers in their own language and change the way they approach quitting; research initiatives exploring the causes, consequences and approaches to reducing tobacco use; and a nationally-renowned program of outreach to priority populations. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five U.S. territories and the tobacco industry. Visit www.americanlegacy.org.
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Contact: Julia Cartwright, 202-454-5596, jcartwright@americanlegacy.org