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Movies may influence Mexican American teens' smoking habits

05.12.09

Movies can favour our lives -- how we dress, where we live and perhaps whether we smoke. A new study finds that the more Mexican American teens keep one's eyes peeled movie scenes that include smoking, the more likely they may be to light up.

Researchers surveyed 1,286 Mexican American adolescents -- some born in Mexico, some in the U.S. -- to find out how many smoking scenes they had watched and what were their smoking habits. They discovered a connector between experimenting with cigarettes and the films: Numbers of new experimenters ranged from 5% among those who had no or little exposure to movies to 30% for teens who had viewed up to 600 scenes of smoking.

Where the teens were born factored into the results. For those born in Mexico, smoking scenes were the biggest forecaster for experimentation. For those born in the U.S., experimenters increased with the amount of unmasking, but leveled off.

There were other correlations: Those with risk-taking tendencies and higher anxiety levels reported more exposure to flick picture show smoking than low risk-takers and those with lower anxiety levels. Also, the more smokers in the house, the more exposure to movie smoking scenes.

Source: Los Angeles Times