Article: Bad influence: TV, movies linked to adolescent smoking.

White adolescents who watch a lot of R-rated movies are nearly three times as likely to try smoking as are their peers who watch little of such fare, a new study finds. Those who have televisions in their bedrooms are twice as likely to take a puff.

In contrast, black teens' smoking isn't associated with how many R-rated movies or hours of television they watched, researchers report in the March Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

While it might seem unsurprising that television shows and movies--with characters often puffing away--would influence youth smoking, few studies had recorded the effects of such media exposure over time, says study ...

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