Kids Who Watch R-Rated Movies More Likely to Smoke

A four-year study of more than 1,200 youngsters performed by the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that children whose parents let them watch R-rated movies are more likely to smoke. Participants were in sixth grade when they started the study, and researchers interviewed them a total of eleven times over the course of the study. They were asked questions about the availability of cigarettes in their home, whether smoking was allowed in their home and whether their parents let them watch R-rated movies and videos. According to the study's lead author, Chyke Doubeni, M.D., MPH, the results may indicate that parents who permit their children to watch R-rate movies may also have a parenting style that encourages smoking, or the results could be an outcome of children viewing all the smoking scenes that occur in R-rated movies. In August, 2008, the National Cancer Institute concluded that a causal relationship exists between exposure to smoking scenes in movies and youth smoking initiation. According to Doubeni, the results of the Massachusetts study show that parental permission to watch R-rated movies is one of the strongest predictors of children's belief that cigarettes are easily available, and that it is an equally strong predictor as having friends who smoke.

Comments

I definitely think smoking in movies influences teens, especially those who do not have strong adult role models. I am glad they examined lax parenting as a variable though. Parents who don't care or are abusive could create more rebellious kids who see adult movies, smoke, and probably a whole host of other things. If it really is a casual relationship, there should be no worries about rigorous scientific methodology. The sounder the science, the more confident we can be of the findings.

It's nothing but a money-thing when you use kids to bend adults over and take away their rights-it's an immoral and unconstitutional thing. Junk science does not a smoker make.