Tobacco.org

• POPE: Hot, Maybe, but Not Smoking  

A few months ago, I wrote an article criticizing the reality series starring supermodel Tyra Banks because it often showed beautiful, skinny women puffing away on cigarettes.

The program is watched by high numbers of preteen and adolescent girls, including my daughter. Regular exposure to smoking on television and in movies increases a child's risk for trying cigarettes and becoming a smoker, studies show. . . .

Last night, thankfully, things did change: America's next top models became America’s next nonsmokers. . . .

“So many young girls are fans of America’s Next Top Model, and right now so many young girls are fans of you. If they see their idol puffing and smoking a cigarette, what does that make them think? Wow, she's smoking, that's cool. So that's why smoking will be banned. It's over.''

The lecture came after an odd segment in which the girls were photographed holding cigarettes in glamorous poses. But then some startling graphics reflected the damage of smoking. The girls were shown coughing up blood, with facial tumors or tracheotomy holes in their necks, bald from chemotherapy and wrinkled from premature aging.

It seemed over-the-top to me, but then my daughter asked, with a look of disgust, “Can all that really happen to you if you smoke? All these things?’’

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