Keeping children who are entering the teenage years from seeing R-rated movies may help parents keep them from smoking, a new study suggests.

The study followed more than 2,500 students from 10 to 14 over two years. Those whose parents let them see R-rated movies sometimes or all the time were almost five times as likely as those who never saw them to have tried smoking in that time, according to the study, which was published Tuesday in the Journal of Pediatrics. The lead author, James Sargent of Dartmouth Medical School, said the study took into account differences in overall parental strictness, which did not seem to have a significant effecton experimenting with smoking. But the study could not demonstrate a cause-and-effect link between smoking andmovie viewing because it was based on statistical coorelations.

Sargent's group decided to examine the effect of R-rated movies because smoking is far more common in thosefilms than in movies rated G of PG. He said earlier research had shown that in the teenage years, when most smoking begins, observation and imitation play a crucial role. And the effect of the movies appeared to be greatest for children whose parents did not smoke.

Of the 399 children in the survey with non-smoking parents who were not allowed to see R-rated movies, three, or less than 1 percent, tried smoking. By contrast, 10 percent of the children of nonsmokers who saw R-rated movies more than occasionally tried smoking.
Source: The International Herald Tribune, 8 July 2004, p.12.

ecoglobe comment:
We are convinced that the exposure to films that celebrate violence and sex in combination with smoking provides a bad role model for our children. The same counts for drinking alcohol, which is also - and wrongly - presented as adult and virile behaviour.

But although the study may appear to support psychological theory, we would caution. Not permitting R-rated films could in itself be indicative of a difference in parental strictness that reflects a general difference in lifestyle and upbringing, which in turn may make children more resistant to societal lures.

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