Kid watching television
IN PHOTO: An Israeli boy watches television inside a bomb shelter at Kibbutz Reim, outside the central Gaza Strip November 18, 2012. Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce. Palestinian fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning, with two rockets targeting Tel Aviv. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

A new study revealed that watching television for longer periods of time can affect the weight of kindergarteners. The research, which was presented in the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting, said that children who watch television for 60 minutes or more are likely to become obese compared to those who spend less than an hour in front of the television.

Previous studies show that there is indeed a link between watching television and obesity; however, specific data that can support the claim were not presented. In the recent study, the authors reviewed the data collated from 11,113 children who took part in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey. The participants were then kindergartners from 2011-2012. In the said survey, lifestyle factors, including frequency and duration of watching television and using computers were asked. Height and weight were also noted.

After a year, 10,853 of the study subjects were reassessed. The researchers from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that on the average, kindergartners across the U.S. spend 3.3 hour watching television daily. Furthermore, kindergartners and first-graders who spent an hour or two in front of the television were found to develop higher body mass indexes (BMI) than those who had an average viewing time of 30-60 minutes only. Specifically, the percentage of children who became overweight after watching as little as an hour of television daily was 50-60 percent. Conversely, kids who became obese in this group was 58-73 percent. Furthermore, 39 percent of kids who watched more than an hour of television became overweight and 86 percent became obese. These findings came about even after modifying social, economic and ethnic factors and computer use.

Paediatricians and parents should devise ways to prevent kids from watching too much television, said Mark D. DeBoer, MD, MSc, MCR, study author and associate professor of pediatrics at the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, University of Virginia. He comments this after yielding such significant results from the recent study. The recommendation of the AAP to restrict television hours of kids and teens to two hours per day may even be lenient, he closed.

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