15 Dec 2012

From SRK to Big B, stars join the anti-smoking movement



G.One: Pata hain har saal haazar log cigarette peena chod dete hain? Prateek: Wow! Packet pe warning padh ke? G.One: No. Mar ke


Thus goes the sequence in the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Ra.One. SRK may be a chain-smoker in real life, but he did carry an anti-smoking message in the film, which he says he produced for his children.

Apart from such messages, celebrities Amitabh Bachchan and Vivek Oberoi have been associated with the government's anti-tobacco movement in recent past.

And they have been able to influence people quit their tobacco addiction, a recent research by the directorate general of health services, ministry of health and family welfare, has found.

The ministry, in association with the department of community medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College(MAMC) and Manas Foundation, assessed the effect of viewing anti-tobacco audiovisual messages in a cinema.

"To see the effectiveness of a celebrity advocating harmful effects of tobacco, a spot containing a message by Vivek Oberoi was chosen ('Choose life not tobacco')," Dr Jagdish Kaur, chief medical officer, National Tobacco Control Programme, ministry of health, and one of the researchers, said.

"Around 76 per cent remembered the anti-tobacco messages and the 'Choose life not tobacco' spot gave 37 per cent viewers inspiration not use tobacco products," she added.

Dr Jugal Kishore from MAMC and Monica Kumar from Manas were also involved in the study.


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