Do Young Adults Mimic Smoking In Movies?

(WebMD)  Watching movie stars smoke on screen makes young adults more likely to smoke cigarettes themselves, according to a new study.

Researchers found young adults aged 18-25 who watched the most movies with smoking stars were 77 percent more likely to have smoked recently and 86 percent more likely to become regular smokers than those who rarely watched movies with smoking.

In fact, the study showed that the more movies with smoking that young adults watched, the more likely they were to become established smokers.

"The main effect is to recruit new smokers from among young adults," says researcher Stanton Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of San Francisco, in a news release. "Ages 18 to 25 are critical years, when one-third of smokers start and others who began smoking as adolescents either stop smoking or become regular smokers."

Previous studies have already shown that on-screen smoking can encourage adolescents to start smoking. But researchers say this is the first to show that exposure to smoking in movies also influences young adults and their smoking habits.

Movie Smoking Affects Young Adults
In the study, researchers surveyed more than 1,500 young adults aged 18-25 in a Web-based survey. The participants were asked about their smoking habits and which of a sample of 60 popular movies released between 2000 and 2004 they had seen. The results appear in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

When researchers compared the number of exposures to smoking in movies with the young adults' smoking habits, they found the odds of smoking rose as exposures to on-screen visuals rose.

After adjusting for other risk factors, they found the odds of smoking rose by 21 percent for each 25 percent increase in exposure to smoking in movies.

The study also showed that two factors influenced the relationship between smoking in movies and young adults smoking in their own lives: positive expectations about smoking and having friends and relatives who smoke.

"Movies encourage them to experiment, and once they start experimenting with cigarettes other factors take hold," says Glantz. "Movies create the expectation that smoking will turn out OK."



(Are you a smoker or ex-smoker? Why did you start smoking? Tell your story on WebMD's Smoking Cessation: Support Group message board.)

By Jennifer Warner
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[michellem99-2009]

Higher esteem is not it. My peers used to smoke as they wanted to be more grown up which they were not. Girls bum a cigerette a have s e x with boy that cute looking but if his seed caused her to bear a child he was gone. It is true girls have low esteem if the male is the centre of lessons and gets the best of what is taught. There teachers feel girls are not worth educating as they marry/have kids. That was the mindset when I was a pupil. Some teens live in unhappy home and will smoke/drink to **** their care givers.esteem they are not taught but torn down. I feel for them.

[beachblond628]

Look teenagers smoke because they think that it is cool.They smoke so they wont think about stuff and to have a higher esteem.

[michellem99-2009]

How is smoking related to forgetting their probloms and school. It is not. Yer thinking them drunk. I have never drank for health reasons. I hate a drunk who can''t leave the can/bottle alone as well.

[beachblond628]

They don''t mimic people in movies,they smoke because they want to forget about their problems and SCHOOL.

[michellem99-2009]

In person they see their parents.grandparnets,adults,their peer in front of them smoke. They may share a cigerette and think nothing of it. A man came to our high school in the early 70s and he gave a talk on this. He had his voice box removed so he had to use to item so he could talk. Late Grampa chewed and had to carry a spittoon. I got turned off on smoking. I was taught it was unlady like to smoke. My foster mothers could not smoke and have foster children. In Bangor ME they can''t smoke in their cars with an underage person in the car. Yes sah.

[grammawhamma]

"TV is not going to stop them from smoking,education will." Well said Michelle.

"People don''''t make decisions in isolation. We take what we see, experience, and believe into consideration for all decisions." posted by simplicity5

Yes...but you can not learn if you are in isolation. People should be exposed to the good and the bad parts of real life so they can learn to make the right decisions...not just sheltered from the evils of the world. As Michelle said...education by parents is also important during the formative years.

[michellem99-2009]

In the 40s and 50s they didn''t know what they do today. I love my Dad and it is heart breaking to have seen him clamb a flight of stairs and Dear God was he going to drop from trying to get air into his lungs. He now is on oxygen 24/7,copd real bad.HE HAD TO QUIT. And the young want to smoke. Just cos I see some one on TV smoke/drink does not mean I must. It was never an issue with me growing up. I hate it and yes I saw the cig ads on TV. I was pissed when the hall person sat out side the pupils'' rest rooms to keep the pupils from smoking in there which I never smoke. I hated a smoked filled room. TV is not going to stop them from smoking,education will.

[simplicity5]

Of course people can make up their own minds, but the point here is that many different factors influence how they come to these decisions. People don''t make decisions in isolation. We take what we see, experience, and believe into consideration for all decisions. Why is it so hard to believe that watching movies might be one of those influential factors? I see how movies can give people, even adults, the idea of what is cool or interesting. Marketing people have known this for a long time, as evidenced by product placement in movies and TV. Smoking in the movies is product placement for tobacco, which is a form of advertising and it''s seems to be working even for young adults.

[grammawhamma]

OMG....young adults age 18-25 are also in Iraq involved in the horrors of a real war. I think they can also handle watching movies with smokers in them and then make up their own minds about the decision to smoke or not to smoke.

[gabbysmomrs]

My mother was a smoker, she first started because of the movie stars in the 40s and she smoked all the rest of her life. She died of emphysema and lung csncer. It takes a long time for you to kill yourself with this drug, but it is a miserable death.

Please don''t start, you''ll regret it at some point and be unable to stop unless you''re very, very lucky.