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Fat chance: TV among warning signs for childhood obesity
The Agence France Presse English (Thu 19 May 2005) reports on a study published online Friday by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that says toddlers who watch television for more than eight hours a week run a significant risk of developing childhood obesity. Prolonged TV-watching is among a watchlist of eight risk factors identified by British doctors among three-year-olds who became obese by the time they were seven. Their study, based on measurements of height, weight and body mass index (BMI) as well as family background and eating habits, is based on 8,234 children aged seven years, as well as 909 children who were taking part in a larger British study of parents and children.
Children who become couch potatoes are also at risk -- more than eight hours spent watching television per week at age three is the benchmark. TV viewing not only fails to burn up calories, it also encourages snacking. Toddlers who sleep badly or for short periods -- less than 10 and a half hours per night at the age of three -- are also statistically at risk of obesity. The study was led by John Reilly, an expert in paediatric energy metabolism at Yorkhill Hospitals, Glasgow.
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