Smoking and Health - Teenager

Anti-smoking advert in which a young man’s attempts at suavity are interrupted by a hacking cough.

Despite the title, this film from a 1968 anti-smoking campaign seems more interested in highlighting the habit’s social inconveniences than its serious health impacts. It portrays a young man practising his suave persona in front of the mirror, only to be interrupted by a coughing fit.

While the emphasis on self-image over well-being may be a reasonable tactic to enlist teenagers, the same approach was used in another film from the campaign (‘Man’, also available on BFI Player), which has a businessman as the protagonist. One in a series of three films from a Ministry of Health campaign to discourage smoking (the others being ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’).