Does Television Cause Childhood Obesity?
- Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH
- From the Department of Pediatrics and Center for Research in Disease Prevention, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, Calif.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- child
- exercise
- nutrition surveys
- obesity
- television
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of childhood obesity. Although recent studies have documented rapidly increasing overweight among US children and adolescents,1 there are few effective tools to combat this problem. Most available weight-control treatments yield only modest, unsustained effects. Similarly, with a few exceptions, prevention programs targeting diet and activity changes have been relatively ineffective at altering body fatness.2 As a result, there is a pressing need for innovative intervention approaches.
Children and adolescents spend a substantial part of their lives in front of a television set. Extrapolation of current viewing data (Nielsen Media Research, Written Communication, February 1997) reveals that, between the ages of 2 and 17 years, US children spend an average of more than 3 years of their waking lives watching television, not including time spent watching videos, playing video games, or using a computer. It should not be surprising, therefore, that there …
