Hollywood actors have a very big influence on young people and children. They all
want to become like them. That is why many times teenagers act like them and
follow their behavior from TV. In many movies the actors are smoking, and those
that are watching them and take example.
The best Hollywood actors John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon
Stone and Julia Roberts have been accused of encouraging young people to start
smoking by lighting up on screen.
In United States was
conducted a research and was published in the British Tobacco Control journal.
The research sustains that students that have age from 10 to 19 are more likely
to start smoking, because their favorite actors smoked on screen. This is in
comparison with those teenagers that have like idols movie stars who don’t
smoke.
In New England was made a survey where have participated
over 630 students from rural schools, they were asked about their smoking
habits and what they thought about smoking. In the end they were asked to tell
the name of their favorite actor movie.
The
researchers then assessed on-screen smoking by 43 movie stars in films made
between 1994 and 1996. They found teens whose favorite stars smoked on screen
were far likelier to smoke than their classmates, whose favorite actors never
smoked, and the more the actor smoked, the more positively the teen thought
about smoking.
DiCaprio,
Stone and Travolta, had more than three movies were they have showed that they
smoke. So the fans of these actors are 16 times likelier to express a positive
opinion about smoking than those who chose "non-smoking" stars.
Mass media
portrayals of smoking among favored movie stars contribute to adolescent
smoking which is a causal link in what remain the leading cause of premature
death and the number one preventable public health problem in the developed
world.
We just
have to be careful not to be influenced about our stars movies, because they
are really different in the real life.
