Tyler Durden, the antagonist of "Fight Club" (1999) played by Brad Pitt, tosses his cigarette on the ground nine times throughout the film. Besides encouraging pollution, these scenes could also play a major role in the onset of teen smoking, according to a new study by researchers at the Geisel School of Medicine.
Teen smoking can be reduced significantly if movies featuring smoking scenes are rated R, according to the study published earlier this month. PG-13 and R-rated movies that show smoking have an equivalent effect in increasing the phenomenon in teenagers, despite the more adult contexts that often accompany smoking in R-rated movies.
Geisel pediatrics professors James Sargent and Susanne Tanski, along with Mike Stoolmiller, a research professor at the University of Oregon's College of Education, found that although smoking scenes do not appear in a majority of PG-13 movies, those movies make up the majority of movies that expose teens to smoking and are therefore just as influential as smoking in R-rated movies. The study, published in the medical journal Pediatrics, proposed eliminating smoking in all PG-13 movies.
Past research has argued that R-rated movies were more harmful to teens because smoking in those films is packaged with other adult behaviors such as extreme violence and sex.
"If that's true, R-rated movies should be more impactful because they have more risk behaviors, but that wasn't the case," Sargent said. "It looked like one episode of PG-13 smoking was just as impactful as an R-rated episode."
The researchers surveyed more than 6,500 adolescents aged 10 to 14 and asked them which of a number of randomly selected box-office hits they had seen the previous year. The young preteens and teenagers were also asked whether they had ever smoked. The study, for which the subjects were interviewed four times over two years, found that teens who were exposed to more movies depicting smoking were more likely to smoke.
On average, teens saw 275 smoking scenes in PG-13 movies and 93 scenes in R-rated movies.
"If you've never smoked, the more you watch, the more you're likely to start," Sargent said.
Assigning an R rating for all movies with smoking could cut the number of new teen smokers by nearly 20 percent, according to the study.
In March, the surgeon general reported that there is sufficient evidence supporting the link between watching smoking scenes in movies and teenagers picking up the habit. Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.
Madeline Dalton, a pediatrics professor at Geisel, said that the research has substantial implications.
"This was an important study because previously, people have always wondered whether all smoking in movies has a similar effect on teen smoking," Dalton said. "This shows that smoking movies for all audiences have detrimental impacts on the youth who are viewing them."
There needs to be a change in the movie ratings system, Dalton said.
"Research shows that smoking movie exposure does impact smoking behavior in both initiation and long-term smoking," Dalton said. "So if we can eliminate exposure, we can eliminate smoking."
Sargent said that movies have just as large of an impact on youth as their parents do.
"I see movies as another kind of a peer because what movie stars do carries a lot of weight with kids," Sargent said. "The impact is similar to the impact of a parent because it's a social influence and changes how kids think about smoking. In some ways, it carries more weight because stars are more looked up to."
College Health Services Director Jack Turco also noted the influence of outside forces on teens.
"I'm most concerned about who early teens or younger perceive as role models, and that could be parents and friends as well," he said.
Although Dick's House has never identified smoking as a significant problem on campus, Turco said he believes there are currently more people smoking than ever before.
"The problem is that when we ask students, Are you a smoker?' they say no, but when you ask them how many cigarettes they smoke per week, they say five or six," Turco said. "It's interesting how they perceive themselves as non-smokers, but they do smoke."
The stricter movie ratings would not completely curb teenage smoking, according to Sargent.
"By limiting their movie exposure, it can delay or stop them from picking up the habit," Sargent said. "At a minimum it would delay their starting to smoke, but a lot are starting at young adulthood, so the ratings will not necessarily prevent them."
Parents should be aware of the media's impacts on children and monitor their movie choices, according to Stoolmiller.
"The biggest implication is that many entertainment media choices are bad for kids," he said. "Parents have to be careful about what they want their kids to watch."
The team is also researching the impact of other media forms such as cable programs and the Internet.
"We're looking at tobacco and alcohol marketing on the web and how that affects kids," Stoolmiller said. "There are a lot of interactive market schemes out there that companies have."
