Image from MedPageToday.com

by Parker Brown
Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Children who watch at least an hour of television a day are more likely to be overweight or obese than those who watch less than an hour a day — but children are watching more than 3 hours a day on average, according to a new study presented at a meeting.

Data from 12,650 kindergarten students in the U.S. show these kids watched a mean of 3.30 hours of television per day, said the researchers, one of whom was Mark DeBoer, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

And compared with children watching less than 30 minutes of TV daily, or 30 to 60 minutes, the children watching 1 to 2 hours per day had higher body mass index (BMI) z-scores (P=0.0002). Children who watched more than 1 hour a day were at a greater risk of being overweight or obese than those who watched less than one hour (odds ratio 1.521 and 1.717, respectively).

DeBoer presented the findings at the annual meeting of Pediatric Academic Societies in San Diego on April 26.

“Given overwhelming evidence connecting the amount of time TV viewing and unhealthy weight, pediatricians and parents should attempt to restrict childhood TV viewing,” said DeBoer in a press release. “These data may have implications for appropriate guidelines for the amount of TV viewing allowed for kindergartners,” added the authors of the study.

In the same study, researchers also found that the amount of computer use was not associated with a higher BMI z-score.

The data were taken from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which looked at children who were kindergartners from 2011 to 2012. Information about time in front of the tube or computer, and other lifestyle factors, was gathered, and children were weighed and measured.

One year later, the children were measured again and parents gave information about how much television their children watched. Researchers adjusted for race, sex, socioeconomic status, and amount of computer use.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children and teens should have less than 2 hours of screen time a day — more than what the data showed, according to the researchers. “Given the data presented in this study, the AAP may wish to lower its recommended TV viewing allowances,” said the authors.