Being involved in team sports decreases the likeability of taking up smoking in adolescence, but can’t contend with the strong impact of smoking scenes in cinema, according to a recent research.
Films can obtrude fashionable trends from clothing to behavior, so research showed that smoking scenes in films double the probability that kid will smoke. Approximately 25-30 percent of teenagers admit to start smoking after having seen Favorite celebrities smoking.
Prof Anna Peterson, lead researcher of University of Alabama School of Medicine, says that team sports can definitely protect children from starting to light up.
However, films can eliminate that positive impact of team sports, added Prof. Peterson, saying that parents should pay attention to the films their children watch, and minimize the exposure to smoking in movies, since even if child is involved in sports, it could be not enough.
The scientist mentioned that parents can check if the film contains smoking films in the special web site dealing with movie ratings.
The findings of the study are published in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics & Preventive Medicine.
During the research, the team led by Peterson gathered information from 2.000 minors in 1999 and in 2007, and compared the data. Exposure to smoking scenes in movies was estimated when the kids were 8-13 years old and involvement in team sports was estimated when the same youngsters were 17-21.
Among the surveyed teenagers, 17 percent admitted to be occasional smokers. The researchers found that those teenagers who said they watched the most films containing smoking scenes when they were kids were two times more likely to light up regularly than those who watched few films with smoking scenes.
Though teenagers who did not participate in team sports were two times more likely to start puffing compared to those who took part in sports, but even among those who played sports, children who watched movies with smoking were more likely to at least try cigarettes.
Moreover, smokers were more probably to be male, and come from smoking environment – where parents, relatives or friends were smokers. Among other factors related to higher likeability of taking up smoking in adolescence were low levels of parental education, lower school performance, lack of university degree and other risky behaviors.
Dr. Monica L. Chaney, vice director of Research Center at University of California Davis School of Medicine, stated that strong influence of movies can be eliminated by telling children the truth about severe health complications related to smoking.
Smoking especially in box-office films frequently links smoking with chick and pleasure. So, the more of that kids see, the more predisposed they are to perceive tobacco consumption in a positive way, according to Dr. Chaney.
She said that all the studies and researches contribute to a necessity to eliminate smoking scenes from films or make them inaccessible to children, in order to decrease the number of adolescent smokers across the nation.
Dr Chaney added that the results of the research are extremely important since they provide an efficient strategy for those parents who want to keep away their children from smoking.
for life. But smoking cessation products are increasingly sending a good portion of those revenues up in smoke.
in President Barack Obama’s child health law.