Estimated 2m Mortality to Tobacco use among children & Adolescents

Emobileclinic News: Estimated 2m Mortality Tobacco use among children & Adolescents

There has been incredibly increase in smoking of cigarettes and other use of tobacco due to the way it has been used and portrayed on the TV.

‘WHO is calling on governments to rate movies that portray tobacco use in a bid to prevent children and adolescents from starting to smoke cigarettes and use other forms of tobacco’. While stating this at Geneva, it was stated that the ‘use of tobacco products have enticed millions of young people worldwide to start smoking and there is need for free smoke movies once more.

“With ever tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising, film remains one of the last channels exposing millions of adolescents to smoking imagery without restrictions,” says Dr Douglas Bettcher, WHO’s Director for the Department of Prevention of Non- communicable Diseases.

They emphasized that taking concrete steps such as rating films with tobacco scenes and ‘displaying tobacco warnings before films with tobacco, can stop children around the world from being introduced to tobacco products and subsequent tobacco-related addiction, disability and death.”

“Smoking in films can be a strong form of promotion for tobacco products,” adds Dr Bettcher. “The 180 Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) are obliged by international law to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.”

Various studied in US have shown that 37% of youth are influenced by TV smoke movies and CDC also noted that in 2014 more 6 million people youth were recruited to smoke with the exposure to ‘on-screeb smoking ‘ while 2million would die as a result of ‘tobacco induced disease ‘ 

“With ever tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising, film remains one of the last channels exposing millions of adolescents to smoking imagery without restrictions, “says Dr Douglas Bettcher, WHO’s Director for the Department of Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases.

‘Many films produced outside of the United States also contain smoking scenes. Surveys have shown that tobacco imagery was found in top-grossing films in many countries. Entertainment industry generally should be looked into. For instance the massive production of musical videos containing tobacco products as displayed by celebrities have influenced a lot of youth who see them as role model to start doing same.

WHO is advocating for ‘Smoke-Free Movie … in line with the guidelines of article 13 of the WHO FCTC’. The following are the recommended policy measures:

‘Requiring age classification ratings for films with tobacco imagery to reduce overall exposure of youth to tobacco imagery in films;

Certifying in movie credits that film producers receive nothing of value from anyone in exchange for using or displaying tobacco products in a film;

Ending display of tobacco brands in films; and

Requiring strong anti-smoking advertisements to be shown before films containing tobacco imagery in all distribution channels (cinemas, televisions, online, etc.)

In addition, the report also recommends making media productions that promote smoking ineligible for public subsidies.’

Dr Armando Peruga, programme manager of WHO’s Tobacco-Free Initiative urges countries to join in this pursuit and commended India and China who have launched this policy.