SAN DIEGO – Kindergartners who watch an hour or more of television a day are more likely to be obese than their peers who watch less than an hour daily, according to research presented at the April 26 Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting.
National efforts to curb childhood obesity traditionally focus on getting kids to be more physically active, but have not focused on searching for a link between television watching and obesity – until now.
This study focused on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey of 11,113 kindergarten kids in 2011 and 2012 as part of a study done by the National Center for Education Statistics, which looked at lifestyles that can impact a child’s academic performance.
Factors taken into consideration include the number of hours spent watching TV in weekdays, and weekends and how often computers were used. The child’s body mass index also was measured.
Facts found were American kids watched 3.3 hours of TV a day, on average. However, those who watched two hours or more had significantly higher BMI than those who watched 30 minutes or less a day – even after taking into account socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity and computer use.
Children watching three hours or more of TV a day are up to 60 percent more likely to be obese than their peers.
http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS15L1_2500.2&terms