Kids Are Watching Too Much TV!

A recent study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting looked at kindergartners and first graders and divided them into groups based on how much TV they watched daily: less than an hour a day, 1-2 hours a day, and 2 or more hours a day. Not surprisingly, the study found a strong link between hours spent watching TV and overweight kids. It also found a link between the hours of TV watched and obesity.

 

What may be surprising to most is the amount of TV that was linked to weight gain. Compared with kids who watched less than one hour of TV a day, the kids who watched one hour of TV a day were 50% more likely to be overweight! And as much as 73% more likely to be obese! Again, these were not kids watching 3 hours of TV a day!

 

Our current surveys suggest that the average American child watches – ready for this – 3 hours and 18 minutes of TV a day!!! If we think of a day as having 24 hours, when the heck are they watching all of this TV if they go to school? They must be watching while they play, watching while they eat dinner or snacks, and even watching while they complete any homework assignments.

 

Looking at this most recent study, it is clear that we are setting our kids up for health problems. Of course it’s easy to let your kids sit in front of the TV. If you are working and your kids are home with a sitter, it may be hard to enforce rules.

 

If our kids are used to watching a lot of TV each day (which we know they are!), then it is going to be a struggle to get them used to do other things without the TV as a crutch. It is NOT impossible; it’s just hard! The sooner we start, the better. We are raising a new generation of inactive people that, despite all of our healthcare advances, will be at a big disadvantage because they are overweight and inactive!

 

Don’t rely on your pediatrician to discuss weight and your child, because they simply don’t have the time to discuss a complex issue like this in just one annual visit. What do you think your child needs more of? Fresh air? Creative play time? Unscheduled time to do anything they like that doesn’t involve staring at a screen?

 

Go with your instincts and try to encourage anything but TV watching! If it’s one of those weeks where you as a parent are over-scheduled, then just unplug the TV and tell them “No TV until the weekend. Find something else to do.” They won’t be happy, they won’t go without a fight, but they will be forced to find something else to do!! It’s easier said than done, but it’s our kids’ life we are talking about. No one said it would be easy.