Canada's frequently hungry children are up to six (=72.2*70.3/(27.8*29.7)) times more likely than non-hungry children to have a daily smoking parent, if occasional smokers represent few of the smoking primary caregivers with frequently hungry children. This is possible if daily smoking caregivers smoke more than occasional smokers and thereby a) have less money for feeding dependent children and b) become disabled and unable to gain jobs, income, or food for dependent children.<3>

If causal, the above associations may account for large portions of child hunger in Canada. Daily smoking alone may account for 24% of all, and up to 56% of frequent, child hunger in Canada, assuming a 25% prevalence of daily smoking among Canada's primary caregivers.

Thus the tobacco industry and their political, commercial, and stockholder supporters may cause much of child hunger in Canada. Comprehensive tobacco control programs might reduce child hunger. McIntyre could evaluate that by entering occasional and daily smoking into analyses as candidate preventable causes of occasional and frequent child hunger. The analyses should consider that smoking may contribute to child hunger through smoking-attributable caregiver depression,<4> ill-health, and death;<5> child ill-health; and possibly divorce,<6> job-hunting (involuntary job loss<7>), and needs for social assistance due to disability<3> or job loss<7> from smoking.