Smoking scenes in movies have a downside

Concerned parents and public health leaders are looking to stub out images of smoking in film- at least in movies aimed at a youthful audience.

That's because multiple studies show that tobacco images in media, especially in movies, can influence young people's decision to start smoking.

The American Legacy Foundation, a national public health foundation dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit, said Hollywood must address this cause of youth smoking now. Foundation president and CEO

Dr. Cheryl Healton recently testified before Congress on the subject.

Studies indicate that exposure to onscreen tobacco imagery recruits 390,000 new smokers a year, 120,000 of whom will ultimately die from tobacco-related disease. The foundation urges any parent who'd like to get involved to visit its website at www.americanlegacy.org and download the Screen Out Guide, a tool kit parents can use to protect children from what they see on screen.

Legacy is one of several national public health organizations around the country, including the American Medical Association and American Heart Association, that have called on the movie industry to implement voluntary policy solutions that would make movies smokefree, including rating any new movie with smoking "R" and inserting anti-smoking public service announcements before any movie with smoking.

The Walt Disney Company recently announced it wouldn't include smoking in its Disneybranded films and would show anti-smoking PSAs before its movies.

The foundation's latest research on the issue found that the majority of youth-rated films still contain smoking, and movies depict smoking in a nonrealistic way that may give young people a more favorable attitude about this deadly and addictive behavior.

"The only way to counter the effect of smoking in movies is to get smoking out of the movies that kids see," Healton said. "An R rating can reduce youth exposure to movie smoking by as much as half, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of lives a year."

This story provided by North American Precis Syndicate Inc.