Do you smoke around your kids?

It’s often reported as being more addictive than cocaine or heroin and that would help perhaps to explain why many smokers sacrifice the health of their children for their fag fix.

Evidence from the US indicates that more young children are killed by parental smoking than by all other unintentional injuries combined.

This week, however, Professor Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, has taken a firm stance against parents who smoke around their children.

He has labelled the habit as a form of ‘child abuse’ and added that parents are putting children at risk of early death.

He said: “Evidence from the US indicates that more young children are killed by parental smoking than by all other unintentional injuries combined.”

A report by the Royal College of Physicians earlier this year also revealed that tens of thousands of children in the UK every year get asthma, chest infections and ear problems because they are exposed to smoke from their parents' cigarettes. The report exposed the fact that some parents mistakenly believe it is not harmful to smoke if they do it with a window open or after their children are asleep.

In light of the report, a Department of Health spokeswoman commented: "Parents have a responsibility to protect their children by stopping smoking around them in enclosed spaces like their cars and in their homes."

The Department of Health has already ruled out extending smoking restrictions to pub gardens, doorways and cars as many believe this would be an attack on civil liberties. However, Field is urging parents especially to look at the bigger picture of health. This also includes healthy eating.

Field, representing 42,000 British GPs, advises parents, mothers-to-be, the obese, smokers and drinkers not to take offence at their doctors’ advice not to smoke, eat or drink in excess.

He said, "Unless parents exert more control over their children's diets, they are risking a lifetime of health problems, and even premature death - death before their parents, which is almost too sad to contemplate.”