Should Movies with Smoking be Rated R?

The 2012 Surgeon General’s Report states there is a causal relationship between exposure to smoking in movies and when youth initatiate smoking. Researchers who analyzed data from a longitudinal cohort of 6,522 adolescents (10-14 yrs) have found that the onset of smoking for every 500 occurences of smoking exposure were nearly the same for PG-13 and R-rated movies. The authors suggested that assigning an R rating to any movie with smoking might reduce the onset of adolescent smoking by 20%.

PositiveTip: “You become what you look at” appears to be the case with adolescents and smoking.