Screen Time

In a study conducted by Patricia M. Anderson and Kristen F Butcher who have written “Childhood Obesity: Trend and Potential Causes “has stated “based on Nielsen data, overall daily minutes of television watching has climbed over the decades. The statistics show that it has increase by 15% from 1990’s to 2000’. Children may be also substitute other forms of media, including videos, videos games and the internet, for television watching. According to a 1999 study, children spent 19.3 hours a week watching television, another 2.3 hours playing video games, and a 2.5 hours in front of the computer internet just over one day of “screen time” a week”. A policy statement from “The American Heart Association written by Deborah R. Young, PHD” stated that “regular physical activity is an important behavior for general health and to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, obesity and some forms of cancer”. She suggest that children should have at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily. The National Football League has also joined the forces by promoting “Play 60” which is a campaign to encourage kids to be active for 60 minutes a day in order to help reverse the trend of childhood

Most children today have access to devices such as television, smartphones, computers, and tablets. These devices can be used in a variety of ways, with both positive and negative outcomes. For example, preschool aged children may use a device to learn letters, numbers, or colors. School aged children may use a computer to conduct research, or watch an educational show. A child may also sit in front of the television for many hours, reducing physical activity, and become obese. I believe it is important for the parent or caregiver of the child to monitor the amount of screen time, as well as the content to optimize the benefits these devices can offer.

Technology has been part of our daily live more frequently than before. Screen time has been more popularly used on kids and adolescents. On a daily bases many kids seem to spend more time inside on their tablets, instead of having to spend time with other kids. This is a problem that is becoming more popular over the years,on whether kids need to spend that much time on technology or not. Parents either seem to have strict technology usage, or they either don’t. There has always been a huge controversy with experts, who either think that screen time is beneficial or could cause problems later on in life. There are many views towards this topic, from hurting kids brains, to helping them during school, and socially.

Many parents are becoming concerned with the increased amount of time, children of all ages are using technology. They think that spending less time using media would be healthy. The AAP is proposing that a two-hour limit of screen time for teenagers would provide those health benefits, however, most teens would find this limit impractical and unhelpful in their daily lives. Adults and children alike can learn new educational skills with the help of different apps, programs, and articles available through electronics.

Even when controlling for ethnicity and socioeconomic status, results still indicate that watching TV contribute significantly to obesity. For example, a study conducted in the United Kingdom concluded that an increase in TV hours on weekends correlated with higher BMIs at 30 years of age. For each added hour of time spent watching TV on weekends at age 5, obesity risk increased by 7%. The impact of watching TV on children’s weight is even more pronounced when there is a TV set in the child’s bedroom. A study of children between the ages of 9 to 12 suggested that having a TV set in their bedroom significantly increased risks of obesity, regardless of physical activity. Moreover, when TV viewing time is decreased, obesity as well as other measures of adiposity are reduced as well. Multiple studies have also documented the positive association between increased TV exposure and increase risks of childhood obesity in the Latino

Greg Critser identifies the main barriers to physical activity in modern society. First of all, being active was viewed as a personal choice, not an obligatory part of daily life. In 1980, TV became the dominant mass medium which occupied a high proportion of American leisure time. According to Greg Critser, an average American watches about four hours of TV a day and during these hours there is no physical activity. Moreover, when people watch TV they usually eat something or take snacks with increased caloric intake. Numerous researches have shown that children who watched television during childhood had a higher risk of becoming obese. CDC also found that children who watched four or more hours of TV per day are more likely to have higher BMI and skinfold thickness than children who watch less television. There is a strong positive association between TV watching time and the risk of becoming overweight or obese. The more television people watch, the more likely they are to gain weight and become overweight or obese. Second of all, cuts in school funds influence physical education and PE classes. The amount of time and frequency children spent in PE class decrease tremendously. Along with this, the level of rigorous activity needed in order to surpass decrease dramatically. By the end of the 1980s, Illinois was the only state that required daily physical

The most basic regulation of weight loss or gain is the amount of energy we put into our body needs to be equally exerted to stay the same. If we put more in, it leads to weight gain and less energy in leads to weight loss. (6) Over the past years our standard portion sizes, from the home to restaurants, have almost doubled. (7) Foods higher in fat and lower in fibre are being consumed more regularly. Skipping breakfast also is contributing to a poorer daily quality of diet. (8) Poor diet quality and lack of physical exercise are major contributions to weight gain and a high BMI. In children, a high level of television viewing has also been linked to weight gain and obesity, through its link to lack of physical activity. (9) These factors are behavioural and choices we make on a daily basis but although a large cause of obesity is not the only

Meier, Mary D. "The Effects of Leisure-Based Screen Time." ProQuest. American Journal of Health Education, May-June 2007. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. .

Electronic gaming devices have over consumed teenagers/ adults leisure time. “In 2011 an estimated 145 million played some sort of video game” (The Statistics Portal). Electronic gaming devices have not only

In the precedent few years, Type 2 diabetes has risen radically among children and adolescents. Experts consider this increase is due to the high rate of overweight and obesity (Cutting TM, Fisher JO, Grimm-Thomas K, Birch LL1999). One of the core reasons of children obesity is watching television. Technology is a vast accessory that millions of people use commonly in daily life. Television could be the most-used technological product of all. Millions of people now have as a minimum one television in their home. Though television seems like an immense thing to have, it has its disadvantages. Television can pessimistically influence people, mainly kids. A number of observational studies have originated an association between television watching and child and adolescent obesity. Moreover, it is recognized that American children spend more time watching television and playing video games than doing something else apart from sleeping. Researchers conducted a randomized, controlled test to assess the effects of reducing television, videotape, and video game use on changes in adiposity, physical activity, and dietary intake (Fisher JO, Birch LL. 1995). “The previous twenty five years have caused such a spectacular increase in childhood obesity. Technology, overeating and lack of physical activity can all contribute to obesity”. Birch LL, Fisher JO. Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents. Pediatr

Parents play a crucial role in the prevention of obesity because they set the stage for their child. When a healthy atmosphere is built, children follow and create healthy lives. At a young age, children follow and adopt the ways of life from their parental roles. Thus, children adopt health habits, food consumption, television screening time, and amount of physical activity from the people they look up to. If parents are eating unhealthy foods and spending numerous hours watching television, children observe these actions and copy them. As toddlers mature and grow, they build personal preferences and actions from their parents habitual actions of unhealthy or active lives. As a parental role, restrictions on video games, computer and cell phone time is essential for the salubrity and well-being of children. An article written by Ron Benaroch states that diet and activity plays the most imperative roles in children’s weight (1). With diet and activity, parents create and set up their child’s routine and patterns. Thus, parents must be an example if they are truly serious about the health of their children. Though it is easy for parents to pick up fast-food after a long and tiring day at work or put their kids in front of the television for their own sanity, parents must be intentional and consistent. Parents must monitor what kids watch and what they

Another environmental cause of childhood obesity is the lack of physical activity. The problem is that physical activity has been replaced by video games, television, social networking and other technology. (Child Obesity Statistics) “It’s proven that children who watch the most hours of television have the highest incidence of obesity.” (Hosten) The American Heart Association they recommend “all children age 2 and older should participate in at least 60 minutes of enjoyable, moderate-intensity physical activities every day.” They also recommend “if your child or children don't have a full 60-minute activity break each day, try to provide at

Today, physical inactivity is a leading risk factor for many noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. One of the many reasons of insufficient physical activity is due to the fact that a lot of children these days’ sit and play games instead of actually physically moving their bodies. Many studies have looked at strategies to reduce physical inactivity in children and a way to help them enjoy playing games and meet their physical activity guidelines is the development of active video games (AVG).

Technology and these devices are addictive. To tell parents and children that they should not limit themselves or their children on the amount of time they spend looking at screens is foolish, and sometimes it dooms

In today’s world television has become one of the most popular and frequently used pastimes. With the increase of technology available today people can now watch television on their phones, laptops, and tablets wherever they go. Something else that has increased in the past years are the number of obese people in the United States. In the last couple decades it was estimated that the number of obese children age 2-5 has more than doubled (5.0% to 12.4%) and for ages 6-11 it has also more than doubled (6.5% to 17.0%). In adolescents aged 12-19 the number has more than tripled (5.0% to 17.0%) and as for adults it is estimated that 70% of Americans are overweight and out of that percentage 50% are obese (Boulos, Vikre, Oppenheimer, Chang, & Kanarek, 2012). It is no coincidence that as the number of prolonged television use has risen so has the number of obese people in America. Television has a negative impact on children that in the long run can lead to obesity.