Department of Health (DOH) in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Taiwan</st1:country-region> has suggested that the National Communications Commission (NCC) to consider the regulation of television programs ratings that contain smoking scenes, such as “One Piece,” a renowned Japanese animation, with rating scheme or viewing time restriction in the future. The smoking scene appeared in this cartoon on average every two minutes. The Department was concerned that kids will pick up the bad habits after watching the show.
According to the published results of monitoring tobacco scenes in television programs by the Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health, the frequency of smoking scenes has significantly been reduced after the control measurement by NCC and DOH since 2009, but they still show up quite often in children’s most beloved cartoon animation “One Piece.”
Since monitoring began in 2008, tobacco-related scenes have increased from 5.33 to 16.5 times in this animation per episode; in other words, smoking scenes appeared once every two minutes in a half-hour episode.
“A study in the United States suggested that when teenagers watch movies with large amount of smoking scenes, his or her likelihood of smoking attempts will increase from 33% to 49% in the next two years,” said Shu-Ti Chiu (邱淑媞), Director-General of the Bureau of Health Promotion.
“We used to handle all images of smoking from cartoon animations with pixelation in the past, but viewers complained when this measure interfered watching. As the counter advertisement, now we put up six different warnings like ‘smoking is harmful to health’ before and after the program advertisement plays.”