Young teens are more likely to start smoking after being exposed to second-hand smoke of a virtual kind that seen in movies, according to a US study published recently.

More than one third of adolescents between the ages of 10 and 14 who tried smoking a cigarette did so as a direct result of exposure to movie smoking, the investigation found.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics. The research was led by James Sargent, a doctor at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Centre in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States.

Investigators selected a representative US sample of 6,522 youngsters, contacted at random by telephone. Overall, 10 per cent of them had tried smoking.

The study focused on the participants' exposure to movie smoking in 532 recent box-office hits.

The youths were split into four groups, based on the amount of movie smoking to which they had been exposed.

The findings indicated no distinguishing factor of race or geographical location with regard to the results. But it discovered that as the amount of exposure to smoking in movies increased, the rate of smoking also increased.

That finding was "suggesting that exposure to movie smoking is the primary independent risk factor for smoking initiation in US adolescents in this age group," the study's authors said in an abstract.

"Limiting exposure of young adolescents to movie smoking could have important public health implications," they said.

The study, "Exposure to Movie Smoking: Its Relation to Smoking Initiation Among US Adolescents," is the first national study to indicate that young people have a higher risk of lighting up as their exposure to movie smoking increases, said the American Legacy Foundation.

Sargent also works in co-operation with the foundation, a national public health foundation devoted to keeping young people from smoking and helping adult smokers quit.

"Dr Sargent has once again provided scientific evidence about the impact of popular culture on the smoking habits of our youth, and all of us especially parents must play a role in monitoring what our children see on the big screen," said Cheryl Healton, foundation president and chief executive.

"We might already consider how language, violence or sexual content in movies affects children, but we must also think about how seeing smoking influences them, since it directly impacts their health in such a negative way," she said in a statement.

(China Daily November 14, 2005)