Tuesday May 1 11:15 AM ET
By Will Boggs, MD
BALTIMORE (Reuters Health) –
Nearly one quarter of American children younger than age 3 already watch at least 3 hours of television on a typical weekday, according to study findings released here Monday at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.
The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children younger than age 2 be spared television viewing altogether, and that older children be limited to no more than 1 or 2 hours per day.
Since so little was known about TV viewing among very young children, Laura K. Certain and Dr. Robert Kahn from Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, used national survey data to determine the TV-viewing habits of children younger than 3.
The percentage of children spending a big portion of their days in front of the television increased with age, the investigators found. While only 6% of children younger than 1 year watched television at least 3 hours per day, the percentage jumped to 21% of youngsters between ages 1 and 2, and to 41% of children ages 2 to 3.
Increased television viewing was more common among lower-income families and was more than twice as likely to happen when the mother had a high school education or less, the results indicate.
“We don’t know exactly why these kids watch TV instead of doing other activities,” Certain told Reuters Health. “It could relate to neighborhood safety or just to the lack of other outside activities available to them.”
“And,” Kahn added, “we don’t know the content or quality of their viewing. We realize there are lots of ways, good and bad, to use TV.”
“We do know,” Certain said, “that excessive TV viewing can lead to obesity and higher levels of aggression, though very little is known about the long-term consequences.”
Both researchers emphasized the need for parents to become aware of how much television their children are watching and to try early on to replace TV with more meaningful interactions with their children.
