Teens & Smoking: Casting the Net
If this doesn't really tick you off, then heaven help you. After years of eliminating smoking scenes in the movies they are making a comeback, especially in movies made for young audiences. Your impressionable kids.
University of California (San Francisco) researchers have recently reported that 80% of PG-13 rated movies contain smoking scenes. They note that this number of smoking scenes has not been present in the movies since the 1950s. The amount of tobacco use has gone up from 10.7 "smoking events per hour" in 1950 to 10.9 in 2002. Researchers defined smoking events as everything from a character lighting up to tobacco advertising in a scene. According to the study on-screen smoking causes 390,000 teenagers a year to try their first cigarette. That is half of all new teenage smokers. "We now have multiple studies making the same point: adolescents who see a lot of smoking in the movies are more likely to start smoking themselves," said researcher Stanton Glantz, who reviewed more than ten year's worth of data for his report.
What can you do? Talk to your kids. Tell them about the health risks of smoking. Tell them how disappointed you'll be if they start smoking. These conversations are very important to keeping your kids smoke free, even if you smoke. Go to the web site Scene Smoking, where they keep track of smoking scenes in all new films. Those without smoking, such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (PG-13), are marked with a symbol of healthy pink lungs. Those such as Rent (also PG-13) earn a pair of cancerous black lungs. If you choose to allow your child to see a film in which the characters smoke, ask them how seeing a character smoking makes them feel. Tell them how it makes you feel; explain your fears. Then keep the dialog going.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) disputes the research findings; an article in the UK Times quotes industry statistics that show that only about half of the PG-13 rated films over the past two years include smoking scenes. "Everybody agrees that smoking is a serious health problem and that our industry shouldn't be encouraging or glamorizing smoking," an industry spokeswoman said about Glantz's research. Yet the Times article goes on to note that the researchers found that although real-life smokers are often poor, tobacco users in the movies are frequently successful and wealthy. Sometimes, in the case of the extraterrestrial comedies Men in Black and Men in Black II, they aren't even human.
So talk your kids about smoking. Because if you don't you can be sure that the movies they see will make them believe that smoking will make them rich, successful and maybe even super human. I bet you can help them figure out better ways to be all those things.
Laurie
Related Topics: How Do You Sell Death? , Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids
University of California (San Francisco) researchers have recently reported that 80% of PG-13 rated movies contain smoking scenes. They note that this number of smoking scenes has not been present in the movies since the 1950s. The amount of tobacco use has gone up from 10.7 "smoking events per hour" in 1950 to 10.9 in 2002. Researchers defined smoking events as everything from a character lighting up to tobacco advertising in a scene. According to the study on-screen smoking causes 390,000 teenagers a year to try their first cigarette. That is half of all new teenage smokers. "We now have multiple studies making the same point: adolescents who see a lot of smoking in the movies are more likely to start smoking themselves," said researcher Stanton Glantz, who reviewed more than ten year's worth of data for his report.
What can you do? Talk to your kids. Tell them about the health risks of smoking. Tell them how disappointed you'll be if they start smoking. These conversations are very important to keeping your kids smoke free, even if you smoke. Go to the web site Scene Smoking, where they keep track of smoking scenes in all new films. Those without smoking, such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (PG-13), are marked with a symbol of healthy pink lungs. Those such as Rent (also PG-13) earn a pair of cancerous black lungs. If you choose to allow your child to see a film in which the characters smoke, ask them how seeing a character smoking makes them feel. Tell them how it makes you feel; explain your fears. Then keep the dialog going.
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) disputes the research findings; an article in the UK Times quotes industry statistics that show that only about half of the PG-13 rated films over the past two years include smoking scenes. "Everybody agrees that smoking is a serious health problem and that our industry shouldn't be encouraging or glamorizing smoking," an industry spokeswoman said about Glantz's research. Yet the Times article goes on to note that the researchers found that although real-life smokers are often poor, tobacco users in the movies are frequently successful and wealthy. Sometimes, in the case of the extraterrestrial comedies Men in Black and Men in Black II, they aren't even human.
So talk your kids about smoking. Because if you don't you can be sure that the movies they see will make them believe that smoking will make them rich, successful and maybe even super human. I bet you can help them figure out better ways to be all those things.
Laurie
Related Topics: How Do You Sell Death? , Campaign For Tobacco Free Kids
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1 Comments:
after i read and printed out your article i was putting the paper in my folder and somehow i managed to get a papercut!! i think this is your fault!! thanks for the paper cut !!!
thanks,
Joey Shutka a.k.a superman
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