Tips to help reduce screen time for your kids

Screentime is the time spent in front of a screen. Anything that has a screen counts towards screentime, like televisions, computers, video games, and even cell phones. The more time that is spent in front of a screen, the less time is spent moving. Time spent watching TV takes time away from reading, playing and being active. Watching a lot fo TV can be bad for children's health and can effect the children's weight.

 The researchers found that children who spent the least amount of time watching television, using the computer, and playing video games had much lower blood pressure levels than those who spent the most time in front of a screen. There are more bad effects of spending more time in front of screen.

Preschoolers with TVs in their bedroom watch an additional 4.8 hours of TV or videos every week.
1 in 4 children under the age of 2 years has a TV in their bedroom.

According to 'The Kaiser Family Foundation':

"American children and adolescents spend 22 to 28 hours per week viewing television, more than any other activity except sleeping. By the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV."

Tips to Reduce Screen Time

• Talk to Your Family: Explain to your kids that it's important to sit less and move more in order to stay at a healthy weight. Tell them they’ll also have more energy, and it will help them develop and/or perfect new skills, such as riding a bike or shooting hoops, that could lead to more fun with friends. Tell them you’ll do the same.
• Set a Good Example: You need to be a good role model and limit your screen time to no more than two hours per day, too. If your kids see you following your own rules, then they’ll be more likely to do the same.
• Log Screen Time vs. Active Time: Start tracking how much time your family spends in front of a screen, including things like TV- and DVD-watching, playing video games, and using the computer for something other than school or work. Then take a look at how much physical activity they get. That way you’ll get a sense of what changes need to be made. Use the Children's Screen Time Log (230 KB) to do it.
• Make Screen Time = Active Time: When you do spend time in front of the screen, do something active. Stretch, do yoga and/or lift weights. Or, challenge the family to see who can do the most push-ups, jumping jacks, or leg lifts during TV commercial breaks.  
• Set Screen Time Limits: Create a house rule that limits screen time to two hours every day. More importantly, enforce the rule.  
• Create Screen-free Bedrooms: Don’t put a TV or computer in your child's bedroom. Kids who have TVs in their room tend to watch about 1.5 hours more TV a day than those that don’t. Plus, it keeps them in their room instead of spending time with the rest of the family.  
• Make Meal Time = Family Time: Turn off the TV during meals. Better yet, remove the TV from the eating area if you have one there. Family meals are a good time to talk to each other. Research shows that families who eat together tend to eat more nutritious meals. Make eating together a priority and schedule family meals at least two to three times a week.  
• Provide Other Options: Watching TV can become a habit, making it easy to forget what else is out there. Give your kids ideas and/or alternatives, such as playing outside, getting a new hobby, or learning a sport. See more tips for getting physically active.
• Don't Use TV Time as Reward or Punishment: Practices like this make TV seem even more important to children.
• Understand TV Ads Placements: Seeing snack foods, candy, soda, and fast food on television affects all of us, especially kids. Help your child understand that because it’s on TV—or your favorite TV characters/actors eat or drink it—doesn’t mean a food or drink is good for you. Get your kids to think about why their favorite cartoon character is trying to get them to eat a certain brand of breakfast cereal.

Tips provided by: 'National Heart Lung and Blood Institute'

According to a survey statistics: Children ages 8–18 spend the following amount of time in front of the screen, daily:

• Approximately 7.5 hours using entertainment media
• Approximately 4.5 hours watching TV
• Approximately 1.5 hours on the computer
• Over an hour playing video games  

These data lie in stark contrast to the 25 minutes per day that children spend reading books.

Today's youth also have the following media in their bedrooms:

More than one–third have a computer, and Internet access
Half have video game players
More than two–thirds have TVs
Those with bedroom TVs spend an hour more in front of the screen than those without TVs

Health experts say screen time at home should be limited to two hours or less a day, unless it’s work- or homework-related. The time we spend in front of the screen could be better spent being more physically active (increasing our ENERGY OUT), and setting a good example for our families.

- Both scary and reassuring. Scary because it makes clear just how little we know about potentially harmful effects of 'tubes' on our brains, but reassuring that someone is finally asking the questions which so desperately need to be answered!"—Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., Educational Psychologist, Author of Endangered Minds and Failure to Connect

- "Well done.... An outstanding investigative movie that begins to present interesting questions about the true nature of television. It presents many compelling facts and questions about an activity that most people take for granted."—www.turnoffyourtv.com

Useful links and resoruces:

* Reviews of :The Tube: A Film by Peter Entell

* Web MD: “Screen Time Boosts Kids’ Blood Pressure”

TV watching and young children

TV has become an essential part of our homes and this media is the most popular form of entertainment. Young children also become addict of tv watching as they grow. But are we neglecting the bad effects of tv watching by not monitoring the schedule of our kids sitting in front of tv?

Not only that there are many harmful effects of tv watching, it is proved by research that tv watching may cause or trigger the cause of autism among young children.

A study at Cornell University performed in 2006 showed that a statistically significant relationship exists between autism rates and television habits of children under three. Other evidence showed that the more time toddlers spent watching television the more likely they were to develop autism-related symptoms. The correlation seemed to coincide with the increased prevalence of cable television and VCR availability in homes during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

It was concluded that nearly 40 percent of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching." Thus the study has two separate findings: that having cable television in the home increased autism rates in California and Pennsylvania somewhat, and that more hours of actually watching television increased autism in California, Oregon, and Washington by a lot.

This is not to say that the researchers found a direct correlation between television and autism, only that there is a relationship. The researchers do not claim television to be a "cause" of autism, only that television may "trigger" symptoms. There is also no indication as to how television may be a factor so there is a lot of objection to the validity of the findings. One such retort is the possibility that indoor air quality may be a bigger factor in triggering autistic symptoms than television.

Unfortunately the researches made a pretty hefty leap of faith in their testing. Their conclusions are based on data collected in areas with high rates of precipitation. They assumed that on rainy days children spent more time inside and thus watched television during that time. This led to evidence that these areas had greater instances of autism which could lead some to argue that rain has just as much causality as television when it comes to autism.

In 2003, a survey by the U.S. Department of Education found that autism rates were higher in northern, less sunny states while southern, sunnier states had lower autism cases. This led them to wonder if the issue was more with vitamin D deficiency rather than indoor air quality, rainy weather, or television.

Despite these conclusions and the lack of any follow up studies, looking at how television affects us on a biological level as a whole is well worth investigating. Psychologist Dr. Aric Sigman analyzed 35 different scientific studies and found that television is harmful in many different ways, including the following:

• Television has been linked to eyesight damage.

• Television disrupts sleep patterns.

• Television disrupts your attention span.

• Television plays a large role in obesity and type 2 diabetes.

• Television may play a role in the development of Alzheimer's.

• Television suppresses the production of melatonin which can lead to cancerous cell mutations. Lower melatonin levels may also be a factor in why girls are reaching puberty at a much earlier age than in the 1950s.

• Brain scans show that within 30 seconds of starting to watch television, a critical part of your thinking brain shuts down.

On top of all this, a study by the American Heart Association found that watching television is as bad for your heart as smoking or high cholesterol. The numbers are staggering. For ever hour spent watching television, your risk of death increases by nearly 11 percent. Four hours in front of the television increases your risk of heart attack by 80 percent.

Related links:
* 'Does Watching TV Cause Autism?'

* 'TV Really Might Cause Autism'

* 'Cornell University research report'

* 'Children and the Media: Control the Effects of Television Watching with Literacy Programs'

* How addiction of Watching TV is affecting our lives?
* TV watching may cause psychological distress among children

TV watching may cause psychological distress among children

Watching tv for long hours regularly may cause behaviour problems among children and according to a new research study, it may increase psychological distress in young children.

'Higher levels of television and screen entertainment time and low physical activity levels interact to increase psychological distress in young children.'

Most of you probably saw a wave of news media reports about a recent study showing that television exposure in infancy and early childhood may lead to a delay in language development. In a recent study also published in Pediatrics, a group of researchers from the University college London in the UK examined the effects of television viewing and physical activity on psychological distress among children of various ages. This study is very interesting, not only because of the provocative findings, but because it opens the door for a discussion of the concept of “Prodrome.”

The authors examined data from the Scottish Health Survey, a nationally representative study of multiple psychosocial factors. The data for this analysis included 1,486 Children age 4 to 12 with a mean age of 8.5, who were assessed in 2003. The Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire was used to assess for psychological distress. Specifically, the total difficulties score incorporates responses to sub scales that examine hyperactivity, emotional distress, conduct problems, and peer problems. The authors also obtained the parents’ reports of the kids’ total weekly hours of television viewing, and the frequency of sports or active play during the week. The authors were primarily interested in exploring whether TV viewing and/or activity level were associated with psychological distress.

The results:

1. On average, kids watched a total of 2.4 hours of television per day
2. Television viewing was associated with sports activity in that those who watched most television were also those with the lowest level of sports activity.
3. Those with the highest levels of television viewing also had the lowest level of fruit intake, and the highest levels of sweets and sugar drink intake.
4. High levels of Television viewing and low levels of physical were both independently associated with psychological distress.
5. An additive effect was found in that the combination of high television viewing and low physical activity was associated with the highest levels of psychological distress.

We can write entire books and a year worth of blog posts discussing the many possible explanations for these findings. The most salient, but not necessarily correct, is that television viewing likely limits other behaviors that are associated with psychological well-being, and that physical activity also promotes psychological well-being directly (physiologically) and indirectly (through the effects on the kid’s social development). Yet, it is possible that these two findings do not cause distress, but are a reflection of distress. For example, relatively recently, researchers have began to extend the concept of prodrome from general medicine to psychiatric disorders. Prodrome refers to a conglomeration of symptoms that reflect the disease process at an early stage, usually before it displays the symptoms that we usually associate with the disease. A prodrome is not a symptom that leads to the disease. The prodrome is the disease itself already evolving.

I’m currently working with Dr. Maria Kovacs on a upcoming invited theoretical paper on prodromes in child depression, and during the writing process I’ve been considering the implications of prodromes to past longitudinal and cross-sectional “predictive” research. That is, how many of the factors that have been found to predict a condition are actually not predictors (causes) of the condition but the condition itself?

Back to the TV viewing/physical activity study; the authors found significantly elevated levels of psychological distress in 4% of the sample. Yet these were not clinical cases with specific diagnoses. It is possible then that the authors were tapping at a subgroup of kids with specific psychiatric problems at the prodrome level (depression for example) which would result in increased levels of anhedonia and reduced motor mobility. This would in turn lead to more ‘just laying on the couch staring at the TV’ and reduced interest in outside sporting events.

Related posts:

ESDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Television reduces verbal interaction between parents and infants, which could delay children's language development, says a U.S. study that challenges claims that certain infant-targeted DVDs actually benefit youngsters.
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The researchers studied 329 children, aged 2 months to 48 months, and found that for each additional hour of television exposure, there was a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) heard from an adult by the children. The study also found that the more hours spent watching television, the fewer vocalizations infants made when adults talked to them.

"Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left alone in front of the television screen, but others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner," wrote Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, of Seattle Children Hospital, and colleagues.

"At first blush, these findings may seem entirely intuitive. However, these findings must be interpreted in light of the fact that purveyors of infant DVDs claim that their products are designed to give parents and children a chance to interact with one another, an assertion that lacks empirical evidence," they noted.

The researchers added that their results may help explain previous findings of a link between television viewing and delayed language development.

"Given the critical role that adult caregivers play in children's linguistic development, whether they talk to their child while the screen is on may be critical and explain the effects that are attributed to content or even amount of television watched," the team wrote. "That is, whether parents talk less (or not at all) during some types of programs or at some times of the day may be as important in this age group as what is being watched."

The study appears in the June issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

link: TV Interferes With Infants' Language Development

Link: Television viewing, psychological distress and thoughts on Prodromes

More links:

* Source link: TV viewing associated with psychological distress

* How addiction of Watching TV is affecting our lives?