Indiantelevision.com Team

(25 September 2007 12:00 pm)

MUMBAI: About 55 per cent of children are unaware of any health warnings on tobacco products and less than 10 per cent could actually recall the health warning on the label of these products.

That's one of the observations made in the project Cancer of the Mind, undertaken by Salaam Bombay foundation on young children.

The project was taken up to assess the stronghold of tobacco advertising on mind's of Mumbai's teenagers. Participating in the study were 3260 respondents, aged between 12-17 years from 15 municipal and private schools.

It states that although gutkha has been banned in Maharashtra since August 2002, gutkha advertising has impacted the minds of children deeply.

The study throws up some interesting observations. When asked to recall slogans of any tobacco company or brand, 71 per cent recalled Manikchand (Oonche log, oonchi pasand). When asked to recall brands, Manikchand and Goa dominated the roost.

Television was the source of 77 per cent of the recalls while print was responsible for a mere 15 per cent. It was also found that while children associate tobacco most with gutkha.

Notably, it was observed that over 40 per cent of the children's parents consumed tobacco.

But a worrying insight that the study arrived at was that inspite of all information available against tobacco, 45 per cent of youngsters still believed that tobacco consumption allows them to have more friends.

This could be possible due to the imagery that media, advertising, fashion and films create for children, the study states.

The study also probed the impact of smoking scenes in movies on these children. It was found that a majority believes that hero is a person who smokes. However, even though they find smoking to be an integral part of the movie, they don't see it as a habit that should be taken up.