STUDY: Parents who smoke can lead to children living in poverty

Everybody knows how dangerous smoking is to one’s health. Even secondhand smoke can be fatal. However, smoking does not only take a toll on one’s well-being, it can also put your family, especially your kids, in the poor house.

A study in the U.K. revealed that 400,000 children live in poverty because their parents smoked. The study, which was published by BMC Public Health, showed that the children had at least one parent who smoked.

When a parent smokes, there is a financial burden in the household as parents would tend to forgo other basic household needs and necessities in order to satisfy their cigarette addiction.

In the Philippines, around 17.3 million adults smoke. According to the 2009 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), 48% of adult males and 9% of adult females in the Philippines smoke. About 23% of the population are also daily smokers. GATS also revealed that an adult male smokes an average of 11 cigarette sticks daily and women smoke seven sticks. For the price of a pack of cigarettes in the Philippines (which ranges from P38 to  62 for regular cigarettes and an average of P 1.90 per stick), a family with a smoker would actually spend about P 600 monthly to sustain their cigarette addiction.

For a poor family in the Philippines which earns about P 6,000 monthly, about at least 10% of their income is reduced if one parent is a chronic smoker. The expenditure for cigarette is almost doubled if both parents smoke.

On a final note, smoking is not just putting a risk to our health, it also decreases the quality of life that we can provide for our family.

Itching to smoke one more stick? Think about your family.