Booze in Movies May Fuel Teenage Drinking

TUESDAY, Feb. 21 (HealthDay News) — Watching a lot of movies that
feature alcohol doubles the likelihood that young teens will start
drinking, and these teens are more likely to progress to binge drinking,
according to a new study.

The researchers said their findings suggest that U.S. movie makers
should adopt the same restrictions for alcohol-product placement as they
have for tobacco.

The study included more than 6,500 U.S. kids, aged 10 to 14, who were
asked about their consumption of alcohol, and potentially influential
factors such as movie viewing and marketing, their home environment, peer
behavior and personal rebelliousness.

During the two-year study, the proportion of kids who started drinking
alcohol more than doubled from 11 percent to 25 percent, and the
proportion of those who started binge drinking (five or more drinks in a
row) tripled from 4 percent to 13 percent, the investigators found.

Having parents who drank and availability of alcohol at home were
associated with kids starting to drink, but not with progression to binge
drinking, according to the study published online Feb. 21 in the journal
BMJ Open.

However, watching movies that featured alcohol use, owning
alcohol-branded merchandise, having friends who drank, and rebelliousness
were all associated with both starting to drink and progression to binge
drinking, the findings showed.

After they adjusted for a number of factors, the researchers concluded
that teens who watched the most movies featuring alcohol were twice as
likely to start drinking and 63 percent more likely to progress to binge
drinking than teens who watched the fewest of such movies.

Watching movies featuring alcohol use accounted for 28 percent of the
kids who started drinking and for 20 percent of those who moved on to
binge drinking, the researchers noted in a journal news release. The
association was not only seen with movie characters who drink but also
with alcohol product placement.

“Product placement in movies is forbidden for cigarettes in the U.S.A.,
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,” James Sargent, of Norris Cotton Cancer Center,
Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, N.H., and colleagues wrote in the
report.

While the researchers uncovered an association between alcohol use in
movies and teen drinking, it did not prove a cause-and-effect
relationship.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism offers
advice on parenting to prevent childhood alcohol use.

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