Study: R-Rating for Smoking Content May Be Ineffective

With policy makers suggesting an automatic R-rating for smoking in films, one study says that such a law would be largely ineffective in preventing teen smoking. Although several studies corroborate that smoking scenes in films make teens more likely to smoke, a New Zealand study indicates that an R-rating may not prevent children from viewing the film.

The study, which is detailed in an article titled "R-Rated Film Viewing and Adolescent Smoking" was published in Preventive Medicine. In it, researchers conducted studies among 88,505 New Zealand year 10 high school students between 2002-2004, asking how often the students watched R-rated films, if they smoked, and any current smoking habits.

"Significantly, we found that 94 percent of the 14 to 15 year olds in our sample watched R-rated movies, and 38.5 percent did so on a weekly basis. Therefore, limiting smoking to R-rated movies will likely not eliminate the influence of smoking in the movies," said Joseph R. DiFranza, MD, professor of family medicine & community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and one author of the study in a press release.

The study indicated a strong correlation between students that watched R-rated films and those that were likely to smoke. Students who never watched R-rated films statistically were half as likely to have tried a cigarette as those who watched the highest amount of R-rated films.

Nonsmokers who watched the most R-rated films were also three times more likely to start smoking later in life, although they had not yet attempted to smoke. The researchers adjusted statistics to allow for such factors as parental smoking, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age, and gender, but still found that the correlations existed.

"The good example parents set by not smoking and forbidding smoking in the home can be trumped by the glamorization of smoking in the movies. The U.S. movie industry contributes to the spread of teen smoking around the globe, rivaling the influence of the tobacco industry,"said co-author Dr. Joseph DiFranza in a press release announcing the results of the study.