Youth and Tobacco: Role Models in Movies

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• Watching movies that include smoking causes young people to start smoking.1 The more smoking young people see on screen, the more likely they are to start smoking.1
• The percentage of youth-rated movies (G, PG, PG-13) that were smokefree doubled from 2002 to 2014 (from 32% to 64%). But in youth-rated movies that showed any smoking, the average number of tobacco incidents per movie also nearly doubled (from 21 to 38) over the same period.2
• The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the studios’ organization that assigns ratings, provides a “smoking label” along with the regular rating for some movies that contain smoking. However, almost 9 of every 10 (88%) youth-rated, top-grossing movies with smoking do not carry an MPAA “smoking label.”2
• The 2012 Surgeon General’s Report (Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults) concluded that an industrywide standard to rate movies with tobacco incidents R could result in reductions in youth smoking.1
• Giving an R rating to future movies with smoking would be expected to reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly 1 in 5 (18%) and prevent 1 million deaths from smoking among children alive today.3
• In 2012, the Surgeon General concluded that exposure to onscreen smoking in movies causes young people to start smoking.1 Because of this exposure to smoking in movies:
• 6.4 million children alive today will become smokers, and 2 million of these children will die prematurely from diseases caused by smoking.2
• • Between 2002 and 2014:2
    • Almost half (45%) of top-grossing movies in the United States were rated PG-13.
    • 6 of every 10 PG-13 movies (60%) showed smoking or other tobacco use.
    • (CDC Source)

Who smokes?

• Each day, more than 3,200 people under 18 smoke their first cigarette, and approximately 2,100 youth and young adults become daily smokers.
•  9 out of 10 smokers start before the age of 18,  and 98% start smoking by age 26.
• 1 in 5 adults and teenagers smoke.