Movie link to binge drinking
Tuesday February 21st, 2012
Popular movies may have a strong influence on teenagers' drinking habits, researchers warned today.
Hollywood
producers are banned from product placement of cigarettes but the same
restriction does not apply to drink.
Now a study of more than 6,500 young teenagers and pre-teens has linked heavy drinking in films with the development of binge drinking.
Researchers analysed more than 500 films to measure the extent of alcohol use and product placement.
They then linked the development of drinking habits to movie watching as well as to other factors such as ownership of branded products.
The researchers found that drinking in the home was linked to the risk of a teenager beginning to drink alcohol at a young age - but not to the development of binge drinking.
But watching drinking scenes in movies, branded merchandise along with rebelliousness and peer pressure were linked to the development of binge drinking - as well as taking up the habit.
Writing in BMJ Open, Professor James Sargent, of Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire, USA, writes: "Product placement in movies is forbidden for cigarettes in the USA, but is legal and commonplace for the alcohol industry, with half of Hollywood films containing at least one alcohol brand appearance, regardless of film rating.
"Like influenza, images in Hollywood movies begin in one region of the world then spread globally, where they may affect drinking behaviours of adolescents everywhere they are distributed."
Tags: Drug and Alcohol Abuse | General Health | Infancy to Adolescence | North America
Printer friendly page