The Negative Effects Of Television On Television And Childhood Obesity

* Children spend more time learning about life through media than in any other manner. The average child spends approximately 28 hours a week watching television, which is twice as much time as they spend in school. (3)

Also, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a study in 2004, 16 percent of children that are between the ages of six and nineteen years of age are overweight or obese. This is a number that has nearly tripled since 1980, mostly due to technological usage. Being overweight can bring with it great health concerns. Many of these children have a chance of developing Type II Diabetes, asthma, sleep apnea, social discrimination, high cholesterol and/or blood pressure. Moreover, according to a Stanford University of Medicine study, elementary students consume 20 percent of their daily calorie intake while watching television, which usually includes unhealthy snacks, largely due to advertisements for junk food and boredom. Coincidently, kids are not burning off any of these calories while they are plopped in front of the television.

Even when controlling for ethnicity and socioeconomic status, results still indicate that watching TV contribute significantly to obesity. For example, a study conducted in the United Kingdom concluded that an increase in TV hours on weekends correlated with higher BMIs at 30 years of age. For each added hour of time spent watching TV on weekends at age 5, obesity risk increased by 7%. The impact of watching TV on children’s weight is even more pronounced when there is a TV set in the child’s bedroom. A study of children between the ages of 9 to 12 suggested that having a TV set in their bedroom significantly increased risks of obesity, regardless of physical activity. Moreover, when TV viewing time is decreased, obesity as well as other measures of adiposity are reduced as well. Multiple studies have also documented the positive association between increased TV exposure and increase risks of childhood obesity in the Latino

The most basic regulation of weight loss or gain is the amount of energy we put into our body needs to be equally exerted to stay the same. If we put more in, it leads to weight gain and less energy in leads to weight loss. (6) Over the past years our standard portion sizes, from the home to restaurants, have almost doubled. (7) Foods higher in fat and lower in fibre are being consumed more regularly. Skipping breakfast also is contributing to a poorer daily quality of diet. (8) Poor diet quality and lack of physical exercise are major contributions to weight gain and a high BMI. In children, a high level of television viewing has also been linked to weight gain and obesity, through its link to lack of physical activity. (9) These factors are behavioural and choices we make on a daily basis but although a large cause of obesity is not the only

Research shows that the majority of screen time has a negative effect on children of all ages. Children ranging from ages two to 11, on average, spend anywhere from 25 to 35 hours a week in front of the television, or other forms of screen time.  At such young

Finally, one school-based, experimental study was designed specifically to test directly the causal relationship between television viewing behaviors and body fatness. The results of this randomized, controlled trial provide evidence that television viewing is a cause of increased body fatness and that reducing television viewing is a promising strategy for preventing childhood obesity.

Herr’s article states that the “Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680” (2). During this time, the child watching TV could be outside doing some exercise as in riding a bike, roller-skating, or even playing baseball. Another cause of obesity can be emotive issues. Low self-esteem, depression, or dramatic life events can be resulted from obesity. Deaths in the family, divorce of the parents, or moving homes can be followed by overeating. “Children often turn to food when they're stressed out, lonely, sad, anxious, or bored” (Kids Health). Low financial resources can also lead to childhood obesity. “Wealthier people have lower rates of obesity than the poor” (Harvard). Poverty can hold back the parents from having the ability to exercise with their own children and or to give them an appropriate nutritional meal due to the shortage of time or the shortage of money. Time because the parents are probably working real hard to make the little money they already make. Childhood obesity is not only caused by problems of emotion, lack of good nutrition, or lack of financial income, but also from the genes. Metabolic disorders can be inherited. “Children whose parents are overweight or obese are at higher risk for becoming obese

There is a wide spread speculation that television viewing is one of the most easily modifiable causes of obesity among children. America children spend more time watching television and videotapes and video games than doing anything else except for sleeping. Two primary mechanisms by which television viewing contributes to obesity have been suggested, reduced energy expenditure from displacement of physical activity and increased dietary energy in take, either during viewing or as a result of food advertising.

According to the A.C. Nielsen Company, kids watch TV for an average of 3.5 hours per day. That’s roughly half the amount of time that they spend in school on a typical weekday. It amounts to about 24 hours per week, which means that TV has a significant influence on what kids are learning – or not learning.

In the precedent few years, Type 2 diabetes has risen radically among children and adolescents. Experts consider this increase is due to the high rate of overweight and obesity (Cutting TM, Fisher JO, Grimm-Thomas K, Birch LL1999). One of the core reasons of children obesity is watching television. Technology is a vast accessory that millions of people use commonly in daily life. Television could be the most-used technological product of all. Millions of people now have as a minimum one television in their home. Though television seems like an immense thing to have, it has its disadvantages. Television can pessimistically influence people, mainly kids. A number of observational studies have originated an association between television watching and child and adolescent obesity. Moreover, it is recognized that American children spend more time watching television and playing video games than doing something else apart from sleeping. Researchers conducted a randomized, controlled test to assess the effects of reducing television, videotape, and video game use on changes in adiposity, physical activity, and dietary intake (Fisher JO, Birch LL. 1995). “The previous twenty five years have caused such a spectacular increase in childhood obesity. Technology, overeating and lack of physical activity can all contribute to obesity”. Birch LL, Fisher JO. Development of eating behaviors among children and adolescents. Pediatr

It was found that at each hour of TV watched by a 5-year-old child their chances of obesity would rise by 7%. Whilst studying 8000 children who had watched 8 or more hours per week, all age 3 it was found that by the time all those children were aged 7, every single one of them were at higher risk than average of obesity. (Pediatrics, 2011). Television on its own shows from 4400 to 7600 fast food commercials a day. Those statistics don’t include what is shown in magazine, billboards and so on. The number of health promoting adverts shown is 165 a day its no wonder today’s children are at higher risk. Speaking of which, the number of children under 5 effected worldwide by obesity found in 2013 was an astonishing 42 million. Its predicted that by 2025 this number will rise to a huge 70 million. (Bupa,2016) The media has fooled people the way never use overweight or unhealthy looking people In adverts, how often do we see obese people on our televisions? Especially when we are trying to be sold something. More often than not in movies fat people are portrayed as unattractive and unpopular and the laughing stock. Society seems to find it difficult to sympathise with obesity as a disease as many see it as self-inflicted issue. (Teaching tolerance, 2016). ) it was found that by 2006, obesity was responsible for 10 percent of media

This has shown how inactive kids are in theses days. Thus, it has been confirmed by the research Relationship of Physical Activity and Television watch with Body Weight and the level of Fatness Among Children that watching TV plays a big part in child obesity since the human body cannot burn much fat efficiently when in the state of not physically active.

Since television was first introduced, it has grabbed the attention of many. Allowing families to gather with one another and spend time watching their favorite shows. Though now it seems that television is playing a new role in many people’s everyday life by taking large amount of their free time. Many adults sit and watch hours of TV every day and now the trait is passing down to their youth. Children would prefer to watch TV, than rather be outside playing sports or doing other types of physical activities. Now the focus of child obesity is at an all-time high with many organizations such as “Shape Up America” calling on Americans to change their habits for the better. They are

In today’s world television has become one of the most popular and frequently used pastimes. With the increase of technology available today people can now watch television on their phones, laptops, and tablets wherever they go. Something else that has increased in the past years are the number of obese people in the United States. In the last couple decades it was estimated that the number of obese children age 2-5 has more than doubled (5.0% to 12.4%) and for ages 6-11 it has also more than doubled (6.5% to 17.0%). In adolescents aged 12-19 the number has more than tripled (5.0% to 17.0%) and as for adults it is estimated that 70% of Americans are overweight and out of that percentage 50% are obese (Boulos, Vikre, Oppenheimer, Chang, & Kanarek, 2012). It is no coincidence that as the number of prolonged television use has risen so has the number of obese people in America. Television has a negative impact on children that in the long run can lead to obesity.

On average, an american over the age of two watches around 34 hours of television every week, which calculates to about 5 hours every day. If the average person sleeps around 8 hours a night, and goes to work or school for 8 hours a well, that leaves only 8 hours left in a person's day for whatever else. So if someone watches 5 hours of television in that same day, there are only 4 hours left over at the end of the night., and 4 hours is not a lot of time when you think of all the things that a person has to do in a day. Of course we are talking about averages here, but there is no denying that there is a major issue with excessive television watching in the united states today. Watching television has become a bad habit for most Americans. It is common that if you walk into someone's home in the U.S,. their t.v. is almost always on. Regardless of if there is even a show they want to watch or if they have other more important things to do, turn it on. While they might not realize it, it has become such a habit for most people to turn on the television console when they get home. It is this mindless watching that is most harmful to a person's life, but the act of watching television in general has no important purpose. Watching television is a waste of time because it is unproductive, it causes people to be inactive, and individuals can lose many hours of their day that they could be using to do more important things by watching television, due to its addictive qualities.