Cultural Messages
Teens are often influenced by what they see on TV, in movies and through advertising. Smoking can be portrayed as pleasant or romantic. A 2008 survey of 3,415 German schoolchildren, published in the "American Journal of Preventive Medicine," found that youngsters with a lot of exposure to tobacco advertising were twice as likely to have tried smoking and three times more likely to have smoked within the previous month, according to News-Medical.Net.