Indonesia is the real champions of smoking with nearly 32% of the adult populations are smokers. The prevalence of youth smoking has jumped more than fourfold during last two decades. This calls for serious effort on tobacco controlling. A high prevalence of tobacco consumption may have an adverse consequence for the future socioeconomic condition of household especially for children development. Since tobacco is addictive consumption, household often reduce other consumption to fulfil the elderly’s consumption of tobacco. As many cases that children are likely powerless in the household decision making, elderly who over controlled consumption’s decision might prioritize their tobacco consumption instead of investing on children development such as education, health, quantity and quality of food. This study utilize a longitudinal dataset of Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) aims at evaluating the impacts of parent smoking behavior on stunting indicated by children’s weight and height growth. An increase in tobacco consumption around two percentage point (1997-2014) has been compensated by a decrease in expenditure share of rice, protein and fat sources of food and education. These kinds of expenditure will significantly influence the children’s future development in terms of weight, height and cognitive ability. Based on our observation of children (<= 5 years old) of IFLS 2007 & 2014, we found that children living in household with chronic smoker as well as with transient smoker tend to have slower growth in weight and height compared to those living in household without smoker. Our study statistically confirmed that children living with non-smoking parent will grow 1.5 kg heavier than those living with chronic smoker parent. Active/chronic smoker tends to have a high probability of stunted kids. This finding provides valuable evidence that controlling tobacco consumption will not only reduce the prevalence of smoking but also will make a better future of Indonesia.

Funding:
Campaign Tobacco-Free Kids.