Up in Smoke: Tobacco Use, Expenditure on Food, and Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries

Smoking leads to child malnutrition in developing countries due to diversion of funds to tobacco use rather than purchase of food items. Male cigarette smokers in countries such as Bangladesh expend more than double as much on cigarettes as per capita expenditure on clothing, housing, health and education combined. A survey of Indian households revealed that higher consumers of tobacco had lower intake of commodities like milk, clean fuels, and entertainment, from which it was deduced that tobacco expenditure negatively influences per capita nutrition intake. A survey on the determinants of health among low-income earners consistently establishes the interactions among smoking as a detrimental behavior related to stress, expenditure on tobacco as 'crowding out' expenditures that could have been used for enhancing health and nutrition, and negative influence on such choices on health outcomes like heart disease.