Predicting adolescents' smoking status in Belgium: The role of music television viewing, gender, and school year

The aim of the present study is to determine whether (1) adolescents' music television viewing at baseline was associated with their smoking behavior 2 years later, and (2) to examine whether respondents' gender and school year moderated this relationship. A prospective cohort study with a 2-year follow-up of 1,147 (baseline non-smoking) adolescents between 13 (youngest cohort) and 16 years old (oldest cohort) was conducted in Flanders (Belgium) in order to examine these objectives. The data indicated that music television viewers have an increased probability of being a smoker 2 years later, even after entering the control variables in the model. This relationship appeared to be moderated by school year. The odds of being a smoker doubled for the adolescents in the youngest cohort who watched music television at least several times a week. For those in the youngest cohort who watched music television almost every day, the odds of being a smoker were almost four times higher than the odds of those watching rarely or not. For the adolescents in the oldest cohort no relationship between music television viewing and smoking was found.