Scimex: Around 400,000 British kids live below the poverty line thanks to their
parents expensive smoking habits, according to UK scientists. Low income
families with parents who smoke spend less on essentials such as food,
clothing and housing. It's also likely to be the case in Australia,
where the cost of smoking is considerably higher than in the UK.
Smoking is not only bad for your health; it also puts 400,000
children in poverty. Smoking places a financial burden on low income
families, suggesting that parents are likely to forgo basic household
and food necessities in order to fund their addiction, according to UK
research published in the open access journal BMC Public Health.
This is the first UK study to highlight the extent to which smoking
exacerbates child poverty. The findings are based on national surveys
which estimate the number of children living in poverty by household
structure. In 1999, the UK government announced a target to abolish
child poverty by 2020, though this target is unlikely to be met. It is
therefore crucial to identify avoidable factors that contribute to and
worsen child poverty.
“Smoking reduces the income available for families to feed, clothe
and otherwise care for their children living in low-income households.
This study demonstrates that if our government, and our health services,
prioritized treating smoking dependence, it could have a major effect
on child poverty as well as health,” says lead author, Dr Tessa Langley
from the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of
Nottingham.
Smoking is an expensive habit and one that impoverishes millions of
people around the world. In the US, smokers spend less on housing than
non-smokers and recent research in India showed that smoking cuts
spending on food, education, and entertainment.
This new study estimates that 1.1 million children in the UK, almost
half of all children in poverty, were living with at least one parent
who smokes. A further 400,000 would be classed as being in poverty if
parental tobacco expenditure were subtracted from household income.
In July 2014, the weighted average price of 20 cigarettes in the UK
was £7 (GB). Although many smokers save money by opting for budget
brands or switching to hand rolling tobacco, the cost of their smoking
is still a substantial drain on the budgets of families living on low
incomes. “The poverty threshold income level for a two parent household
with two children is £392. If both parents are smokers, these households
will be spending an average of £50 on tobacco per week, which is a big
drain on an already tight budget,” says Tessa Langley.
This is a key opportunity for the UK Government to take action to
improve the lives of millions of children. “Tobacco control
interventions to encourage low income smokers to quit, would not only
improve health but also alleviate poverty,” says Tessa Langley. Future
studies are needed to determine what families sacrifice to sustain their
habit, whether they do without fresh fruit or food in general; heating
bills or clothing. This would provide a better picture on the burden of
smoking in poor households.