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Violence permeates nearly 90% of PG-13 films with violent acts often portrayed as being "justified," a study published in the journal Pediatrics revealed.

Theresa Webb of UCLA and her colleagues analysed a sample of 77 PG-13 films, and observed a total of 2251 violent actions with roughly half of lethal magnitude.

A total of 118 acts contained justified violence that were initiated by major characters and were extremely serious, and approximately two thirds of the films were rated PG-13 for reasons other than violence.

"Clearly, media violence is not the leading cause of violence in society, but it is a significant one, and one that could be altered more easily than other root causes," Victor C. Strasburger, MD of University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, New Mexico commented. "Hollywood needs to understand that the science is convincing and that an intelligent response is needed."

"No one is suggesting censorship," he emphasised. "However, violence in movies has steadily been increasing during the past decade, and not only have the ratings not kept pace, but they have underrated the increasing violence—so-called ratings creep. Movies that were R-rated a decade ago are now PG-13."

"The notion of justifiable violence leads nations into wars, in case anyone was wondering about the significance of all of this," Strasburger added. "So Hollywood writers and producers have to be much more careful about how they portray violence, in what context, and to whom."

While calling on the MPAA to come up with a rating system that parents can understand, he called on parents to stop thinking that sex is "worse" than violence in movies.