Parents carefully monitor their children’s TV and movie viewing habits to ensure what they watch is appropriate. No one wants their child to imitate certain behaviours whether it’s violence, foul language or drug use. 

 

Most parents have seen first hand how TV and movies can influence their children (e.g. hairstyles, clothes, language). But what about smoking? Do kids start smoking because they see it in a film or on TV?

 

 

A number of research studies have shown that tobacco use in movies makes teens more inclined to try smoking.

 

Experts are weighing in on the issue. Dr. Elizabeth Richardson, Medical Officer of Health for the City of Hamilton Region said, “When youth see their favourite celebrity smoking on the big screen, they are 16 times more likely to have positive attitudes about smoking in the future.” 

 

Stan Glantz, a leading tobacco control advocate in the United States, adds "Research in several countries has consistently shown that, after taking into account all the other things that cause smoking. adolescents who see high levels of smoking in movies are 3 times as likely to smoke as similar adolescents with low levels of exposure.”

 

The volume of research studies on this subject led the US National Cancer Institute to conclude that there is a causal relationship between exposure to depictions of smoking in movies and youth smoking initiation.

 

So how big of a problem is smoking in movies? According to Jono Polansky, a consultant with the Smoke-free Movies campaign in the United States, there were nearly 4,400 tobacco scenes in 2008 and 2009 top box office films.

 

Polansky explains, “Overall, between 2007 and 2009, movies delivered 55 billion tobacco impressions to North American theatre audiences, a quarter of them - almost 14 billion – to kids younger than 18.” 

 

A recent example of smoking in movies took place in the hugely popular Avatar. In an early scene, an environmental scientist played by Sigourney Weaver demands her cigarettes from her subordinates then begins to smoke vigorously.

 

Following the World Health Organization’s recommendations, advocates have called for the Ontario Film Review Board and other agencies to put an adult accompaniment rating on films with smoking.. 

 

An adult accompaniment rating, called ‘18A’, means that someone under 18 can still view the film, but only if accompanied by an adult. The idea is to protect teens from the influence of smoking much the same way they are protected from on-screen violence, sex and drug use. It is also a way to ensure that film makers are more aware of the effect of on-screen smoking and to encourage them to eliminate it.

 

Those supporting an 18A rating suggest that it should not apply retroactively and exemptions should be available if the character being portrayed is a real historical figure (e.g. Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck) or if the smoking in the film has realistic health consequences.  

 

 

 

To find out more about this issue, you can go to www.youthtarget.ca or Smoke Free Movies.

 

If you are concerned about smoking in movies, you can write to the Ontario Film Review Board and ask them to consider putting an adult accompaniment – 18A - rating on movies with smoking scenes.