Colorful ads and movie scenes featuring alcohol immediately attract people to grab the bottle and drink more while they are watching, according to researchers.
An experiment with students showed that volunteers exposed to a film and commercials in which alcohol featured predominately drank an average one-and-a-half bottles of beer more during the hour they were watching, Dutch researchers said Wednesday.
The findings highlight an urgent need to explicitly warn people -- and parents -- if movies contain alcohol use as such portrayals have a direct effect on drinking, researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen said.
The study involved 80 male university students who were shown two different films, one of which featured alcohol far less prominently. They were also shown either "neutral" commercials or ones with alcohol ads.
"Implications of these findings may be that, if moderation of alcohol consumption in certain groups is strived for, it may be sensible to cut down on the portrayal of alcohol in programmes aimed at these groups and the commercials shown in between," Rutger Engels and colleagues wrote.
During the one-hour film in the laboratory fitted with leather couches and comfortable chairs,
The most alcohol anyone drank was four bottles and the least amount was none, the researchers said, adding it was not possible to tell whether watching alcohol on screen has any effect on long-term behavior.
(Agencies via Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2009)