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Each year approximately 207,000 children in the UK between 11 and 15 years of age start smoking, Thorax reports. The estimates are based on questionnaires completed by 6,519 children in 219 schools during the 2011 autumn term.

Of the 3.7m children in the UK between 11 and 15 years of age, the authors estimated that, each day, 463 children started smoking in England, 55 in Scotland, 30 in Wales and 19 in Northern Ireland. Sixty-seven children in London alone (“more than two classrooms full”) started smoking daily.

Yet these figures probably underestimate the problem, since selling tobacco products to people under the age of 18 years is illegal. The study focused on 11 to 15-year-olds with the authors highlighting the lack of “robust data on smoking” in 16 and 17-year- olds – “a critical transitional period for smoking behaviour”.

Despite this limitation, the findings “should help to raise awareness of childhood smoking and focus attention on the need to address this important child protection issue,” they say.

(doi:10.1136/thoraxjnl-2013-204379)