Television is an intrinsic
part of our culture and it's inevitable that our children will watch it. It can
be entertaining and educational: but it can contribute to childhood obesity.
Television is pervasive and
the average Australian schoolleaver will have spent more time watching telly
than in the classroom! Television has the potential to impart information,
inform opinion and provide relaxation. But it may also negatively impact on a
child’s health and portray certain models and values to children before they
are cognitively ready to separate fantasy or opinion from fact, or to
critically assess what they are watching.
The television-watching
habits a child acquires as a pre-schooler are likely to stay with them for
life, which means there is an opportunity to impart healthy lifestyle choices.
So how do you avoid the pitfalls?
The big concern about
television-watching and children’s health is obesity. The ratio of Australian
pre-schoolers who are overweight or obese is growing rapidly. We are now so
used to seeing overweight children, that parents of children who are a healthy
weight for their height may see them as “skinny”, and children who are
overweight may be seen as “normal”.
This explosion in body
weight is due to changes in diet and activity – and televisionwatching may
contribute adversely to both. Increasing hours spent watching TV is associated
with increasing obesity, and this is worse for children who are otherwise not
very active or who have a high fat intake.
The relationship between
obesity and television-watching is as true for the preschooler as it is for the
older child. The excess weight accumulates over the years, so the younger a
child starts logging up hours in front of the TV, the more years they have to
accumulate fat. Children’s bodies have the least fat at around 4-6 years of
age.
The younger a child hits
this point and then starts gaining body fat, the more likely they are to be
obese in later life; so fatness in the pre-school age may have longterm
consequences. Fewer minutes spent in vigorous activity and more minutes spent
watching TV are the two factors most strongly linked with body-fat acquisition
at this age. As low-fat intakes are only recommended from age 5, for
pre-schoolers regular active play is the best way to help prevent later
obesity.
Negative impacts
Television may have a
negative impact on children’s body composition in a number of ways, including:
•
Taking the place of
physical activity
•
Exposing the child to
‘eating prompts’ in food ads, and increasing food intake by eating while
watching
•
Effectively advertising
high-fat and/or high-sugar foods
•
Slowing the body’s energy
use.
Most kids relax in front of
the TV and don’t expend much energy. Foods are the most commonly advertised
products on children’s TV, and ads for high-fat, highsugar foods predominate. A
study of Sydney television showed that confectionery and fast food were the
most common categories of commercials in children’s viewing hours. Research
consistently shows that they influence children’s food preferences.
Food intake in children
increases after exposure to food ads, and they are more likely to choose
advertised products. ‘Pestering’ for a given food seems to be related to the
number of hours spent watching TV, and requests for particular foods are linked
to those advertised. Obese children are more likely to recognise food ads than
lean children.
Young children are likely
to see foods promoted as “good” as being healthy. One study showed that the
nutritional knowledge and reasoning of early-primaryschool children decreased
with the amount of television they watched. For school-age children, poorer
food choices is linked with time spent in front of the ‘box’. Greater TV use is
associated with higher intakes of sugar, fatty and salty snacks and fizzy
drinks, and lower intakes of fruit and vegetables.
As a group, foods
advertised on TV are high in fat, saturated fat, protein, free sugars and salt,
and low in fibre and some micro-nutrients. These are the kinds of food
associated with obesity and dental caries in childhood and heart disease,
diabetes and cancer in adulthood.
Effect on behaviour
Television exposes children
to experiences that are not a normal part of their life. It has been known for
some time that childhood exposure to media violence predicts aggressive
behaviour in young adult males and females. This is more likely where the
aggressive TV character is one that children identify with (the hero) and where
they perceive the TV violence to be real.
More recently, researchers
have found that each hour of television viewed at age 4 was associated with an
increased likelihood of being a bully at 6-9 years. Reassuringly, parental
support and interaction at 4 years protected against becoming a bully.
What do they learn from
TV?
Children learn from TV from
a young age. Babies react to the emotional meaning of television content and
2-year-olds can learn from pictures presented on video (whereas learning from
pictures is more difficult at this age). Children under 4 are unable to tell
the program from the commercial and have difficulty understanding that what
they are watching is not real.
Studies have shown that
TV-watching before age 3 may be associated with somewhat poorer cognitive
development in early primary school, and this was likely to increase with the
amount of time spent watching TV. In primary school, children who spend more
time watching TV tend to spend less time on homework, studying and reading for
pleasure, and are more impulsive, which also affects their academic
performance.
Reassuringly, one group of
researchers following pre-schoolers from the age of 2 and testing reading,
maths, receptive vocabulary and school readiness found that it was not so much
how you watch as what you watch. They found that viewing what they called
“child-audience informative programs” between 2 and 3 years old predicted high
subsequent performance in academic skills; frequent viewers of general audience
programs did less well. Children who had good skills at age 5 tended to prefer
the informational programs to cartoons. So some TV programs may add to the
experiences you give your child.
8 telly watching tips
1.Television-watching should be a small part of life and not the default
activity for when nothing structured is on. Creative play, reading and hobbies
are preferable as primary pursuits. So how do you keep them away from the
box? Minimise the number of TVs available. Don’t allow one in your
child’s room. Have the TV positioned where you can keep an eye on what they’re
watching and out of view of the dining room.
2.Model good behaviour. Turn the TV on to watch a selected program and
turn it off when you have finished. Don’t snack as you watch.
3.When your child asks, “Can I watch TV?” ask them what they want to
watch. Let them know what is going to happen when it finishes.
4.Use the classification system (‘G’, ‘PG’, ‘M’, ‘MA’) to help select
programs. Programs made for children are rated ‘C’ for primary-school children
and ‘P’ for pre-school children.
5.Make tapes of programs of good educational content, such as Sesame
Street, for the times that you would like them to watch – for example, when
they’re too sick for other activities. Choose ones that are educational and
non-violent.
6.Try to watch shows together and discuss them afterwards.
7.Limit the hours of viewing. The Australian Dept of Health & Ageing
recommends limiting children’s total media time to no more than 1 to 2 hours
per day – this includes all TV, videos, DVDs, Playstation, computer time etc.
It recommends discouraging TV viewing for children under 2 and encouraging
“interactive activities that promote proper brain development, such as talking,
playing and reading together”.
Don’t have the TV on during meals. They are an
important time to be social with your children. Particularly avoid the News
during mealtimes if you have young children. The concept that the day’s horrors
are unlikely to happen to them may be hard for them
to grasp.
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