Movies spur smoking more than sports teams do

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kids who play team sports are less likely than their peers to smoke, but sports cannot beat the influence of movies, a new study suggests.

A number of studies have found that media images of smoking may sway the odds that children and teenagers will take up the habit.

This latest study, reported in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, suggests that the influence of movies may undo some of the positive effects of team sports.

Among the more than 2,000 9- to 14-year-olds researchers followed for seven years, those who were not involved in team sports as teens were twice as likely to smoke.

However, when the researchers looked at participants' exposure to smoking in the movies, they found evidence of media influences among all teenagers, whether they played sports or not.

The bottom line for parents is that although sports can decrease the odds their kids will smoke, media images still have a strong impact, according to Dr. Anna M. Adachi-Mejia and colleagues at Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

But parents should not be alone in policing kids' exposure to on-screen smoking, the researchers say.

Prohibiting smoking in youth-oriented movies, or giving an R rating to movies that contain smoking, are two measures the industry could take, Adachi-Mejia and her colleagues point out.

"This study," they write, "adds to the mounting evidence pointing to the need for explicit policies addressing ways to minimize youth exposure to movie smoking."