Children's Television Programming

Next to sleeping, watching television is the most frequent activity engaged in by school-aged children. Included in the broad category of television watching are watching videotapes or DVDs; playing on the computer, including text messaging and computer games; and playing video games on stand-alone game consoles. Television-viewing is the number one leisure-time activity of most school-aged children. Since television was first invented in the 1950s, the number of television sets in the typical home has steadily increased, as have viewing times. With the expansion of programming from local networks to around-the-world broadcasts, with 24-hour-a-day availability, compared to limited evening hours when television was first introduced, and with programming targeted to tots to octogenarians and everyone in between, on every topic from sports to cooking and from space to discovery, television is everywhere. North American children aged 8–18 spend about 45 hours per week on media-related activities and estimates are even higher for preschool-aged children. The average high school graduate will likely spend 15,000 to 18,000 hours in front of a television, but only 12,000 hours in school. The top 25 percent of child viewers watch 4 or more hours of television per day. Almost half of children aged 8–16 watch 3–5 hours of television a day.

Approximately 30 percent of children in this age range are overweight and 15 percent are obese. Inactive behaviors, such as watching television or playing computer games, are considered risk factors for obesity in school-aged children. Kids who watch the most hours of television have the highest incidence of obesity. In fact, as much as 60 percent of the cases of overweight may be related to television viewing.

Obesity in children increases the more hours of television that children watch. As television viewing time rises, time spent exercising declines, especially among girls. Children who watch more than 3 hours of television a day are 50 percent more likely to be obese than kids who watch less than 2 hours. The top 25 percent of children who watch 4 or more hours of television a day have significantly more body fat than those who watch less television. The more time children spend watching television, the greater their weight increase. The situation is similar for preschoolers. In addition, while television viewing predicts weight gain, weight gain itself predicts greater television viewing, as being overweight makes exercising more difficult.

Inactive behaviors, such as watching television, are considered risk factors for obesity in school-aged children.

Increased television viewing and subsequent lack of exercise affect children adversely in many areas. For example, early childhood is a time of tremendous physical growth for children and the amount of physical activity positively affects the strength and amount of bone mass; lack of physical activity leads to diminished bone mass. Metabolic rates during television viewing are significantly lower than during resting periods, including sleep, for both obese and normal weight children aged 8–12. Increased health risks are associated with increasing obesity and disorders formerly seen only in adults are appearing more frequently in younger and younger individuals, such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. So children are not only at risk of developing these diseases as adults, but they are also more likely to develop them as children, with increasing weight. Overweight children tend to grow into overweight adults. Health issues that used to affect only adults are increasingly affecting overweight children with concomitant costs to the individual and to the healthcare system.

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