A recent study revealed that childhood obesity is tightly linked to children watching at least 60 minutes of television a day.
Researchers found that kindergarteners and first-graders who are allowed to watch up to or over an hour of television a day are more likely to be overweight and even obese children, compared to those that do no watch TV, according to The Huffington Post.
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests a two-hour maximum limit of TV for children. But this new data challenges that.
Dr. Mark DeBoer of the University of Virginia, the study’s author, said, “Children watching one to two hours were heavier than those watching less than one hour, and were almost as heavy as those watching greater than two hours daily.”
Dr. DeBoer used material from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study for his research. His team analyzed and calculated the information gathered from the 2011-2012 study on 11,113 kindergarten kids.
This study collected information around lifestyle factors that affected children’s educational performance. Among the factors was how much time the kids spent using a computer and watching TV. The children’s height and weight were also measured as part of the data. All of the information was then collected again a year later.
The study showed some heavy connections between weight and TV-watching time. Findings here revealed that the kids who watched up to two hours of TV a day had higher body mass indexes than those who watched TV for less than an hour each day. Those who spent more than an hour in front the TV a day were an overwhelming 86 percent more likely to become obese. And although they studied the use of TV and computers with the children, they found no conclusive evidence that there was any correlation between a child’s computer use and weight.
The study Dr. DeBoer and his team did was not on any new topic. Heavy television watching has been linked to heavier people for decades. Even in 1985 there was a study that observed a group of children that concluded that “we fatten our children at the television set.” Other studies done since then have found the same association to be true.
Although this current study did not analyze the influence of commercials on the heavy weight of children watching a lot of TV, past studies have. In a 2013 study by Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital, researchers suggested that commercials were a strong factor in influencing the watcher to consume sugary, unhealthy foods and snacks through the ads during children’s programming, but also that TV watching on its own aides a hand to mindless snacking.
The results of the current study, and from the many studies done over the years past, have offered a very clear solution to the problem. Limiting TV-watching time can only add to the solution. But consistent test results over the decades has shown it is easier said than done.
