The only reps involved are hand from Doritos bag to mouth and back.
Several studies of late have produced statistics regarding the amount of time American kids spend watching TV, and almost all the numbers are disturbing. A report issued in November by Nielsen, for example, had childhood tube-watching at an eight-year high, with kids aged 2 to 5 putting in 32 hours a week, and those in the 6 to 11 demographic logging 28 hours. These are, of course, hours spent not exercising or being physically active, unless you count snack runs to the kitchen.
Incidentally, it would be nice to interpret these numbers as evidence that while kids aged 2 to 5 don’t get to decide how they’ll spend that time and are largely just plopped down in front of a kind of electronic nanny/playmate, they begin rejecting TV for other activities as they grow older and wiser and more experienced,. Alas, that’s not the case. According to the researchers, the older kids’ reduced TV watching isn’t due to judgment or good taste, but the fact that they’re now in school for those hours.
A Chip off the Old Potato
In any case, this raises the question, “Just where did kids today get the idea they could spend one third of their waking lives sitting on their butts watching the tube?” Easy: From those peerless role models, grownups, who according to a separate Nielsen study, spend an average of 4 hours and 49 minutes per day gawking at the TV. For those of you keeping score at home, that works out to a total of 33 hours and 43 minutes per week per adult, easily topping their offspring.
The Moral is not news, but evidently it needs to be repeated on a regular basis. Most of the difference between a healthy-body-weight child and an overweight or obese child lies in choices made by the parents: what kind and how much food to have available, what kind of time limits they set on sedentary activities (TV, video gaming, Facebook, etc.), and especially the examples they set by their own behavior when it comes to eating and exercise. To paraphrase the old saying: Chunky see, chunky do.
Obesity in Kids: There’s No Silver Lining
Let’s say that you’re the parent of an obese child and you’ve consulted his or her pediatrician and been told that doctors do not usually treat simple obesity in children unless there are other signs of “metabolic syndrome,” such as high blood pressure, blood sugar problems, low levels of good cholesterol and so forth. If so, you may want to refer your child’s doctor to a study released last week by the Nemours Children’s Clinic.
In essence, researchers found that children who are obese at the age of seven run an increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease early in adulthood, whether they have any other “syndrome” indicators or not. Indeed, a count of pre-disease indicators in blood tests determined that obese children had ten times the levels as their normal-weight peers, controlled for age and sex. The bottom line is that there is probably no “safe” age at which childhood obesity can be blithely accepted or ignored.
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News (REF3076322B7)
Kid stuff: Why They Watch so Much TV, and Why Their Weight is a Serious Matter