"R" Rating For Movies With Smoking To Cut Teenage Smoking

Date: Jul-09-2012The impact of an R rating for movie smoking was considered for the first time in a new study by Norris Cotton Cancer Center, examining the cause-and-effect relationship it has with adolescent smoking. A movie that has an R rating because of its smoking content could significantly decrease the number of adolescents who take up smoking, according to James Sargent, MD, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program.

Sargent explained:

"Smoking is a killer. Its connection to cancer, heart attacks, and chronic lung disease is beyond doubt. Kids start to smoke before they're old enough to think about the risks; after starting they rapidly become addicted and then regret it. Hollywood plays a role by making smoking look really good.

By eliminating smoking in movies marketed to youth, an R rating for smoking would dramatically reduce exposure and lower adolescent smoking by as much as one-fifth."

Health care officials and authorities have been trying to stop the tobacco industry from targeting young people for many years. Hollywood has somehow managed to get away with promoting blockbusting movies containing cigarette smoking actors, in many cases puffing away for much of the films. Hollywood stars are admired by fans, especially young ones, who may wish to be "cool" just like they are, and if their idols are smoking.....

In this study, Sargent and team analyzed data on 6,522 American adolescents - they were monitored at eight-month intervals. The investigators analyzed a total of 532 hit movies and worked out how much smoking exposure they might contain - they termed it MSE (movie smoking exposure). The movies were categorized into three rating groups - G/PG, PG-13, and R.

They found that movie smoking exposure, on average, was three times higher in the PG-13 category compared to the R ones, but their relation to smoking was pretty similar.

The scientists showed through their investigations that if smoking in movies rated PG-13 were largely eliminated, everything else being equal, smoking in adolescents would be decreased 18 percent.

Hollywood has had a close relationship with the tobacco industry for a long time

The authors wrote:

"The equilavent effect of PG-13 rated and R-rated MSE suggests it is the movie smoking that prompts adolescents to smoke, not other characteristics of R-rated movies or adolescents drawn to them."

The authors hope that people will eventually start to realize how much of an impact the movie business has on smoking habits in society. Sargent, who is also professor of pediatrics at The Giesel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, explains that the movie industry should take smoking as seriously as they do with profanity when applying the R rating to movies.

In an Abstract in the same journal, the authors concluded:

"The equivalent effect of PG-13-rated and R-rated MSE suggests it is the movie smoking that prompts adolescents to smoke, not other characteristics of R-rated movies or adolescents drawn to them.

An R rating for movie smoking could substantially reduce adolescent smoking by eliminating smoking from PG-13 movies."

A study by researchers at the UCLA Stroke Center found that Hollywood stars have a much higher risk of stroke compared to the general population. (Link to article)

In May, 2012, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health described Hollywood's pledge to address the impact of smoking in movies aimed at adolescents as a "lackluster" effort. (Link to article)

A 2007 report found that the incidence of smoking in movies made in the USA has an impact on teenagers all over the world. Studies in Germany, Mexico and the USA demonstrated a correlation between the amount of smoking imagery in movies and the likelihood of adolescents starting to smoke. (Link to article)

Written by Sara Glynn

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