A new research study from the UVA School of Medicine has found that young children who watch one to two hours of TV per day are much more likely to become overweight or obese than those who watch for less than an hour.
“We were interested to see that children watching only one or two hours of TV already had almost the same degree of unhealthy body weight as those watching more than two hours,” said Mark D. DeBoer, MD, of the UVA Department of Pediatrics. “These data support the notion that even lower amounts of TV viewing are associated with unhealthy weight gain.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children be limited to no more than two hours of television daily. However, DeBoer thinks that even that may be too much given his team’s findings.
Absolutely! Television and child obesity do go hand in hand. With so much screen based media available in today’s world, it is hard for parents to keep children away from technology. At all times, kids are bombarded with advertising for high-calorie snack foods, for which they are tempted to eat, and at the same time, their hands are free to allow them to munch at will.