Tobacco addiction compel adults to starve their children

New York, November5: Its astonishing to learn that people are actually starving their brood by smoking butts. A recent study shows that children are malnourished and starved if there are adult smokers at home.

Dr. Michael Weitzman, study author, said that adults are also equally affected in such households but children bear most of the brunt. Dr. Weitzman is the chairman of pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine.

"We know that there are long-term consequences of food insecurity for children. They are more likely to do poorly in school, to have iron deficiency and anemia, and to have behavioral and social problems," he said. "It is a standardized scale measuring how many times a household cannot give children the food they want, how many meals they skip, how often they go to bed hungry."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture came up with the concept of "Food insecurity" in the 90s, which meant to focus and study malnutrition in developed countries like United States.

Weitzman's team used national survey statistics of 8,817 households by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was noted that in the last year, about 11 percent children and 15 percent adults admitted to food insecurity. Of these, 6 percent adults and 1 percent children were extremely bogged down with food insecurity, which actually no food available compelling them to go to bed hungry.

Further concentrating on households with children, about 23 percent of them had at least one smoker whereas the figure is 32 percent for low-income households. Considering the data, 17 percent children said they felt the insecurity for food, while statistics from non-smoking households indicated 8.7 percent food-insecure children.

Smokers were found to habitually exhaust their money on tobacco and tobacco products, roughly around 2 to 20 percent of the income, when it could be used for buying basic necessities for the family.

According to Weitzman, food insecurity troubles adults too. "They cut back on feeding themselves before they cut back on the children's food. And parents tend to feed the youngest children better," he added.

The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine has published the research in its November issue.

Weitzman cautioned that economic crises may worsen the situation further. "If the economic downturn persists, both food insecurity and adults smoking are likely to increase" because smoking "is one of the hardest addictions to give up," he commented. But if tobacco products are taxed heavily, then people may feel the need to slash the household expenses even more to get their daily puff.

John F. Banzhaf III, executive director and chief counsel of Action on Smoking and Health, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization talked of considering another two strategies.

"The first would be to persuade or even require physicians to report, as the law already requires in suspected child abuse, instances where parents smoke at home in the presence of children, especially children who already have asthma, sinusitis or other conditions which make them especially sensitive and susceptible," Banzhaf said. Another approach would involve doctors who are not warning people against tobacco consumption or not providing helpful treatment for smoking cessation.

"One journal article has even gone so far as to suggest that the best, and perhaps the only, way to motivate most of them would be to begin bringing malpractice actions where medical problems results," he commented.