Shocking things happening at TFI

[rsubras]

Not sure if these guys are as smart as you expect, and also if you would accept this, since these are surveys conducted in western countries
For drinking [From http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/2/1/e...en_current_tab]

Abstract

Objective To compare media/marketing exposures and family factors in predicting adolescent alcohol use.

Design Cohort study.

Setting Confidential telephone survey of adolescents in their homes.

Participants Representative sample of 6522 US adolescents, aged 10–14 years at baseline and surveyed four times over 2 years.

Primary outcome measure Time to alcohol onset and progression to binge drinking were assessed with two survival models. Predictors were movie alcohol exposure (MAE), ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise and characteristics of the family (parental alcohol use, home availability of alcohol and parenting). Covariates included sociodemographics, peer drinking and personality factors.

Results Over the study period, the prevalence of adolescent ever use and binge drinking increased from 11% to 25% and from 4% to 13%, respectively. At baseline, the median estimated MAE from a population of 532 movies was 4.5 h and 11% owned alcohol-branded merchandise at time 2. Parental alcohol use (greater than or equal to weekly) was reported by 23% and 29% of adolescents could obtain alcohol from home. Peer drinking, MAE, alcohol-branded merchandise, age and rebelliousness were associated with both alcohol onset and progression to binge drinking. The adjusted hazard ratios for alcohol onset and binge drinking transition for high versus low MAE exposure were 2.13 (95% CI 1.76 to 2.57) and 1.63 (1.20 to 2.21), respectively, and MAE accounted for 28% and 20% of these transitions, respectively. Characteristics of the family were associated with alcohol onset but not with progression.

Conclusion The results suggest that family focused interventions would have a larger impact on alcohol onset while limiting media and marketing exposure could help prevent both onset and progression.

For Smoking
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0117175332.htm

The research team surveyed more than 2,200 children ages 9-12 from 26 schools in New Hampshire and Vermont. Children were asked about movies they had seen and their smoking behavior at an initial baseline survey and at two follow-up surveys. Children who had already tried smoking before the baseline survey were not included in the follow-up surveys.
At the baseline survey, children were given randomly sampled lists containing 50 of the 550 top box office movies over the prior 5.5 years and asked which movies they had seen. Children were interviewed again in two follow-up surveys, one and two years later, about their smoking behavior and the movies they had seen based on updated lists of 50 of the 200 top box office movies and video rentals during the previous year.
By the third survey, 10 percent of the children had initiated smoking. Results from the three surveys showed that each child had seen an average of 37 out of the 150 popular movies they were asked about, exposing them to an average of 150 smoking occurrences. About 80 percent of the children's exposure was due to smoking images portrayed in youth-rated movies (G, PG, PG-13).
"The results indicated that the earliest exposure to movie smoking was as important as exposure measured at the two follow-ups in predicting children's smoking initiation," said Titus-Ernstoff. "This finding suggests that the process which leads children to initiate smoking begins much earlier than adolescence. Viewing smoking in the movies may influence the decision to smoke in more than a third of children."
The take-home message from this study is that exposure to movie smoking occurring during early childhood is as influential as exposure that occurs nearer to the time of smoking initiation, Titus-Ernstoff says. Even young children who see smoking in movies may be at risk for smoking later on. Parents also need to be aware, she adds, that most of children's exposure to movie smoking comes from youth-rated movies, and that they should try to reduce their children's viewing of movies that contain smoking.

One more
From http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...86804J20120709

- Youth who watch a lot of movies with cigarette-smoking characters - whether the films are rated R or PG-13 - are more likely to start smoking themselves, researchers suggest in a new study out Monday.
The report's lead author said the finding supports the idea that it's the smoking itself - and not the sex, profanity or violence that may go along with it in certain films - that influences youth to take up the habit.
"Movie smoking seems to be just as impactful if it's packaged in a PG-13 movie as opposed to an R movie," said Dr. James Sargent, from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
"I really think it's a ‘cool' factor. The more they see it, the more they start to see ways that (smoking) might make them seem more movie-star," he told Reuters Health - even if the effect is subconscious.
Sargent and his colleagues counted how many times a character was seen smoking in each of over 500 box-office hits from recent years. Then, they asked 6,500 U.S. kids ages 10 to 14 which of a random selection of 50 of those movies they'd watched.
The average "dose" of movie smoking was 275 scenes from films rated PG-13 and 93 scenes from R movies, the researchers reported in Pediatrics.
And in three subsequent interviews with the same kids, those who had watched smoking-heavy movies were more likely to pick up the habit themselves. For each extra 500 smoking shots reported in their initial survey, youth were 33 to 49 percent more likely to try cigarettes over the next two years.
The effect of on-screen smoking was not significantly different for PG-13 and R films. And because kids tend to see more PG-13 flicks, Sargent's team calculated that if smoking automatically earned an R rating, the number of youngsters who try cigarettes would drop by 18 percent.