[icernet] Bollywood 'link' to Asian smoking

[Arul Selvan]

Manly images in Bollywood films may be fuelling the smoking epidemic 
among South Asian men in the UK, a new report has claimed.  This idea 
was reinforced by fashionable images of smoking in Indian films and 
popular media. In contrast, it was not considered acceptable for South 
Asian women to smoke and many believed it was shameful and 
disrespectful. Dr White says: "Bollywood films, which are popular among 
the UK's South Asians, often show their leading men with a cigarette in 
their hand as did the Hollywood films of the forties and fifties. "If 
the handsome hero is the one seen lighting up in these films, it gives 
smoking a positive image - and one that can affect those watching."

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2995051.stm