Childhood Obesity and Television

We as parents must take a more active role in motivating our children to get out and move, move, move!

A resent study concerning children, television/computers and obesity seems to indicate there’s a strong correlation between television/computers and childhood obesity. Researcher Tracie A. Barnett, of Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital Research Center in Montreal, and her colleagues surveyed 1,293 seventh-grade students from 10 Montreal high schools in 1999 and followed many of them for five years.

Half the boys and ¼ of the girls spent more than 42 hours per week in front of a television/computer. The study also found that girls who lived in poorer neighborhoods were 5 times more like to spend time in front of a television/computers than were girls who lived in more affluent neighborhoods. This posed a problem for parents who had to decide whether was safer to allow their children to spend time in front of a television/computer or let them go outside where it could be dangerous.

Seems parents aren’t aware of the mounting research that’s indicates the correlation between too much television and obesity, smoking, alcohol use, violent and aggressive behavior, tolerance of aggression against women, and poor school performance. These are real dangers that I believe, require parents to come up with creative alternatives to sitting in front of a television/computer. There are suggested guidelines for how much time a child should spend in front of a television/computer.

We as parents must challenge our children to become active. If each parent takes a vested interest in their children we can influence the present upward trend of the obesity epidemic that is stealing the future of our children.