Daily roundup 2 November: Drugs, child poverty, and body mass

More young people have tried drugs than have tried smoking, research suggests. An anonymous survey conducted by NHS Digital found that 19 per cent of 11- to 15-year-olds had tried smoking, compared with 24 per cent who have taken drugs, an increase from 15 per cent in 2014. NHS Digital said part of the increase may be explained by the addition of questions on nitrous oxide and new psychoactive substances, also known as "legal highs", but added that, after allowing for this, it "still represents a large increase which has not been seen in other data sources".


Around 400,000 more children are set to fall into poverty in the next four years if the government pursues its planned tax and benefit reforms, a report has warned. The Independent reports that research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies forecasts that under current plans for changes to benefits, including the rollout of Universal Credit, relative child poverty is set to increase from 27 per cent to 31 per cent by 2021.


The widespread use of body mass index to measure childhood obesity in the UK may have misclassified children from certain ethnic minorities as obese, according to a new study. The Huffington Post reports that researchers from St George's, University of London and University College London, found that British children from South Asian backgrounds have the highest levels of obesity out of any group - when previous studies have suggested that black children have the highest levels of childhood obesity.


The number of children living with families receiving benefits has dropped by more than half a million in six years, an official report said. The Daily Mail reports that the analysis by the Office for National Statistics found that hundreds of thousands of parents who were previously accepting benefits have moved into jobs.


Children in some areas of England are four times as likely to have rotten teeth than those elsewhere, a study has found. The Daily Mail reports that the Nuffield Trust think-tank and the Health Foundation identified a large variation in levels of dental health among both adults and children. Generally, middle-class households and those living in the South had much better teeth than working-class families or those in the North.