Actors smoke less and less in movies, but alcohol is still a widely used resource on the big screen , according to a study carried out by the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in Lebanon in New Hampshire (USA), which has analyzed more of 1,400 films shot between 1996 and 2009.
According to the conclusions of the study, published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics , the analysis detected a total of 500 tobacco brands and 2,433 appearances of alcohol brands. Likewise, it is observed that after the agreement between the tobacco companies and the United States administration, which limited the appearance of brands, it was reduced exponentially by 7%, each year, afterwards it remained at a level of 22 per year from 2006.
In contrast, there has been little change in the time that big screen actors spend drinking alcoholic beverages. In fact, the number of scenes where alcohol is consumed in movies rated for young people has risen from 80 to 145 on average per year .
“These results are worrying,” said David Jernigan, director of the Alcohol and Youth Marketing Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, who understands that many movies show that “all occasions are ideal to drink. a glass”. And since movies influence how much teens smoke and drink, the results should be taken into account to avoid early alcohol abuse and its health risks. “No film for young people should show minors consuming alcohol, nor alcoholism, nor people who drink and drive at the same time,” conclude the authors.
