Wednesday November 5, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Children
and adults living with adult smokers are more likely to have a problem called
food insecurity that those without any smoker, according to a study published
in the November 2008 issue of Archives f Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Food insecurity is a term used to describe the inability
to access enough food in a socially acceptable way for every day of the
year.
In households with severe food
insecurity, food intake is involuntarily reduced and usual eating patterns are
disrupted.
The study of 8,817 households with children age 17 or younger
led by Cynthia Cutler-Triggs, M.D., of the New York University School of
Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center, and colleagues found that of children in
households with smokers, 17 percent were food insecure compared to 8.7 percent
in households without smokers.
The study also found that 3.2 percent of the children in
the households with at least one smoker experienced severe food insecurity
compared 0.9 percent in household without smokers.
"For adults, 25.7 percent in households with smokers
and 11.6 percent in households without smokers were food insecure, and rates of
severe food insecurity were 11.8 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively,"
the researchers wrote in their report.
The rate and severity of food insecurity has something to
do with household income.
Studies have
early shown that food insecurity is found more common in the households with
low income than those with high income, 32 percent in poor families versus 15
percent in affluent families.
The researchers believed that the reason why households
with a smoker are more likely to experience food insecurity is because some
income needs to be spent on tobacco.
In an accompanying editorial, Frank J. Chaloupka, Ph.D.,
of the University of Illinois at Chicago said the health problems caused by
cigarette smoking further lower resources for food and raise the likelihood of
food insecurity.
Another study of 120 young children ages 2 to 6 published
in the same issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found
that children followed their parents' dietary habits.
In the study children were allowed to "buy"
food from a play grocery store and researchers found that children even
2-year-olds tended to buy what they parents buy.
Dr. Lisa A. Sutherland of Dartmouth Medical School in
Lebanon, New Hampshire was quoted as writing "The data suggest that
children begin to assimilate and mimic their parents' food choices at a very
young age, even before they are able to fully appreciate the implications of
these choices."
The study suggests that preschool children are ready to
form their preferences for foods and their parents' preferences would have an
impact on the children's.
Because of
this, parents need to watch what they buy or eat if they want their children to
follow a healthy diet.
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