Meena Cherian (Switzerland) proposed 'points which could enable inclusion of community participation in policies such as':
"10. Movies should not encourage showing actors smoking unless it is required in the script (very rarely it would be!)."
https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/tobacco-43-q1-do-people-understand-harm...
Indeed, smoking continues to be extremely common not only in movies but also in television drama of all kinds. There seems to be a disconnect between this use and the prevalence of smoking in, for example, news programmes and light entertainment, where cigarettes are almost completely banished.
A problem with smoking in movies and drama is that viewers - many young and impressionable - are likely to empathise with those characters and to internalise their action (smoking) as desirable.
As a result, young people are being inappropriately seduced.
There is no counterbalance (most smokers will die early as a result of their habit).
It seems to me that the tobacco control community have so far largely failed to engage the majority of young people at eh time they take up smoking. The media, and big tobacco, are far more effective the other way.
What can be done to empower the tobacco control community and weaken the media and big tobacco?
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
