Nearly 570 children are lighting up and becoming smokers for the first time every day - or a staggering 207,000 children aged 11-15 in the UK every year according to Cancer Research UK. This figure is up 50,000 in just one year, although the 2010 figure was deemed unusually low!
Around 27 per cent of all under 16’s have tried smoking at least once - equivalent to one million children. Eight out of ten adult smokers start before they turn 19.
And the figures show that older children smoke more than the younger ones.
A survey among 12 year olds in 2010 found none were regular smokers, one per cent smoked occasionally and two per cent said they used to smoke.
But a year later in 2011 among the same age group of children, now aged 13, two per cent were found to smoke regularly, four per cent smoked occasionally and three pre cent said they used to smoke.
Half of all long tern smokers will die from tobacco related illness. Around 100,000 people are killed by smoking in the UK each year.