The Impact of Smoking Scenes in Movies and Smoking Households on Kids

What This Means to You

Kids who are around smokers are breathing secondhand smoke that contains 250-plus chemicals known to be toxic or carcinogenic (cancer-causing), from arsenic and ammonia to hydrogen cyanide. Often, concentrations of these chemicals are higher in secondhand smoke than in the smoke inhaled by smokers.

If you smoke and have (or are expecting) a child, quitting is the only way to significantly reduce exposure to toxic tobacco chemicals. You wouldn't light a cigarette, put it in your child's mouth, and encourage your little one to puff away. As ridiculous as this seems, parents who continue to smoke — or let anyone else smoke — around kids are in effect allowing their kids to smoke, too.

Harder to monitor and regulate is what your kids see on the big screen regarding smoking. After dramatically decreasing between 1950 and 1990, movie scenes featuring smoking spiked after that and now are just as common as back in 1950 — and making matters worse, many of these scenes are in PG-13 films as well as R-rated ones.

So it's important to find opportunities to discuss how smoking (and other risky behaviors) are depicted in the movies and on TV. Talk to your kids about what they watch and share your own beliefs and values. If you see something together that you don't approve of, use it as a chance to ask thought-provoking questions about the way smoking appears onscreen (glamorous, fun, sexy, adult, etc.) versus the reality (besides the grim health risks, you can talk about bad breath, smelly clothes, the high cost of cigarettes, and how smoking is banned in most public areas).

And as with most things, if you model positive, healthy behaviors, your kids are likely to follow your good example.

Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD Date reviewed: April 2009

Sources: "Early Exposure to Movie Smoking Predicts Established Smoking by Older Teens and Young Adults" and "Family Composition and Children's Exposure to Adult Smokers in Their Homes." Pediatrics, April 2009.