Research from New York University School of Medicine suggests that children sharing homes with adult smokers are at greater risk of being underfed and undernourished, in part because money for food is being spent on cigarettes instead, the Washington Post reported Nov. 4.

Researchers studied data gathered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 8,817 households and found that 11 percent of children and 15 percent of adults reported "food insecurity" within the past year. Food insecurity was defined as how many times a household failed to give children the food they want, how many meals they skip, and how often they go to bed hungry.

Seventeen percent of children reported food insecurity in households with one smoker, compared to 8.7 percent in nonsmoking households. Smokers spent an estimated two to 20 percent of their income on tobacco, the study found.

The study also found that there were more low-income households where children lived with at least one smoker.

Weitzman added that food insecurity for these families would most likely get worse due to the current economic situation in the U.S. "If the economic downturn persists, both food insecurity and adults smoking are likely to increase," he said, because smoking "is one of the hardest addictions to give up."

The findings were published in the Nov. 11, 2008 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.