Smoking incidents in movies has caused a fluctuation in the percentage of youth using tobacco. Today’s best-selling movies have undoubtedly influenced the use of tobacco in minors. While the main goal might not have been to steer children in the direction of tobacco use, that has been the underlying message perceived by youth when they watch their favorite actors and actresses smoking cigarettes in their favorite movies.
According to Smoke Free Movies, 44% of all youth tobacco users were influenced by their favorite actresses or actors they saw smoking in movies. That’s almost half of all adolescent tobacco users that were influenced by a celebrity, which shows the power and control famous individuals have on today’s youth.
In another study done by Tobacco Free Kids, youth rated movies (PG-13 & G) were shown to have 56% of all tobacco related incidents in every rating of movies. That’s a total of over 14 billion impressions. That’s 14 billion tobacco incidents that weren’t even targeted at adults but to impressionable youth. Do you think the movie directors did that on accident?
Tobacco is becoming a huge problem that we have to worry about affecting our children in the near future. With movies that are being promoted as meant for children but are polluted with subliminal advertisement for the big tobacco companies, how can we keep our children from being lured into the world of tobacco? We need to take action against these messages being conveyed onto our children before we lose control of the situation. We can take small steps to make this change by making any movies containing tobacco related impressions rated R so that children won’t become victims to the trap set by big tobacco companies.
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