Consumer Affair
Smoking raises food insecurity risk
By Sue Mueller
Nov 5, 2008 - 8:53:19 AM

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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.