According to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, watching actors drink alcohol in movies appears to raise the likelihood that teenagers will drink and suffer from alcohol-related problems, CBS News reported.
Researchers said that alcohol is a drug and it has harmful effects for individuals, family and friends. In the study, scientists surveyed 5163 15-year olds and asked them about their drinking habits. They questioned participants about 50 different famous movies and discovered that after controlling various factors such as parental alcohol consumption, social class and gender, the participants who saw more of movies that showed alcohol consumption were 20 percent more likely to try alcohol and 70 percent more likely to binge drink.
Scientists found that these participants were twice as likely to consume alcohol more than once each week and suffer from alcohol related issues. It was also found that more than 72 percent of the famous box office movies in the UK portrayed drinking; however just 6 percent of them were classified for adult audiences.
The researchers suggested that movie ratings should take alcohol use into account. Dr. Victor Strasburger of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine said that the ratings should be based on content.
Researchers believed that rating films according to alcohol content may decrease decrease alcohol-related problems. Drinking alcohol can cause major health problems such as injuries sustained in automobile accidents and cirrhosis of the liver, WebMD reported. Moreover, scientists have tied consumption of alcohol to more than 60 diseases. Heavy drinking can lead to cancer and cardiovascular disease