One Blog for the Kids!: Television

Showing posts with label Television. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Too much TV puts children's hearts at risk: study

Kids, this is something that you should beware of: too much TV!
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Posted: 20 April 2011

SYDNEY: Children who spend too much time watching television increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes in later life, an Australian study showed on Wednesday.

In what was declared world-first research, the University of Sydney found that six- to seven-year-olds who spent the most time watching television had narrower arteries in the back of their eyes.

This increased their chances of developing heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes when they were older.

"Parents need to get their children up and moving and off the couch," said Dr Bamini Gopinath, the lead author.

The study examined 1,500 six- and seven-year-olds in 34 primary schools in Sydney.

On average, the children studied spent 1.9 hours a day watching television and 36 minutes a day in organised physical activity.

Those with the highest levels of physical activity -- just over an hour or more -- had significantly wider retinal arteries on average than those who spent less than half an hour a day being physically active.

"We found children with a high level of physical activity had a more beneficial microvascular profile compared to those with the lowest levels of physical activity," said Gopinath.

"This suggests unhealthy lifestyle factors may influence microcirculation early in life and increase the risk of heart disease and high blood pressure later in life."

Gopinath, senior research fellow at the Westmead Millennium Institute's Centre for Vision Research, added that excessive screen time leads to less physical activity, unhealthy dietary habits and weight gain.

"Replacing one hour a day of screen time with physical activity could be effective in buffering the effects of sedentary lifestyles on the retinal microvasculature in children," he said.

"Free play should be promoted and schools should have a mandatory two hours a week in physical activity for children."

The study is reported this week in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

-AFP/ck

Taken From ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Too much TV puts children's hearts at risk: study

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

D'oh! Simpsons may promote smoking

Kids, as you always hear it from older folks, not everything that you see on TV, you would do as well. Learn to differentiate from what is good and what is bad – a lot of times, being sleek or groovy is not the beneficial path to take…

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Posted: 01 June 2009 1913 hrs

The Simpsons

MELBOURNE: Long-running US cartoon show "The Simpsons" may inadvertently promote smoking with its frequent depictions of the habit and references to cigarettes, Australian research has found.

While smoking may be responsible for Krusty the Clown's heart condition and sisters Patty and Selma's raspy voices, the show may promote tobacco use simply by showing it in so many episodes, the research concluded.

University of Sydney public health specialist Guy Eslick examined instances of smoking in the first 18 seasons of the show about the dysfunctional family from Springfield, trawling through some 400 episodes in all.

He found that smoking was depicted 795 times over the 18-season period, featuring in a negative context 35 per cent of the time, positive two per cent and neutral 63 per cent.

Most of the time, 63 per cent, the characters shown smoking were adults, although children and teenagers featured in eight per cent of references, with the rest made up of nicotine-addicted animals.

Eslick said cartoon characters had been shown to be effective tools in marketing cigarettes to children, citing the long-running Joe Camel campaign in the United States.

He said research had also shown that the more children were exposed to cigarettes in movies and on television, the more likely they were to take up the habit.

"In conclusion, it is clear that smoking is a frequent event on The Simpsons television show, and that even instances of smoking being reflected in a negative way, particularly among child and adolescent characters, could have an impact in prompting children to smoke cigarettes," Eslick concluded.

The research was published in the Medical Journal of Australia Monday. - AFP/il

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

D'oh! Simpsons may promote smoking

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Posted: 01 June 2009 1913 hrs

The Simpsons

MELBOURNE: Long-running US cartoon show "The Simpsons" may inadvertently promote smoking with its frequent depictions of the habit and references to cigarettes, Australian research has found.

He found that smoking was depicted 795 times over the 18-season period, featuring in a negative context 35 per cent of the time, positive two per cent and neutral 63 per cent.

Most of the time, 63 per cent, the characters shown smoking were adults, although children and teenagers featured in eight per cent of references, with the rest made up of nicotine-addicted animals.

Eslick said cartoon characters had been shown to be effective tools in marketing cigarettes to children, citing the long-running Joe Camel campaign in the United States.

He said research had also shown that the more children were exposed to cigarettes in movies and on television, the more likely they were to take up the habit.

The research was published in the Medical Journal of Australia Monday. - AFP/il

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Constant TV is bad for babies: study

And that means kids should be away from the TV!

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Posted: 02 June 2009 1214 hrs

WASHINGTON - Having the television on constantly in a household with infants and toddlers is bad for brain and language development because it reduces the number of words the kids hear and say, a study showed Monday.

"Audible television clearly reduces speech for both infants and their caregivers within the home and this is potentially harmful for babies' development," said University of Washington professor of pediatrics Dimitri Christakis, who led the study.

The study found that for every hour that the television is on with the volume turned up in a household with small children, the children heard between 500-1,000 fewer words from adults.

"Adults typically utter approximately 941 words per hour. Our study found that adult words are almost completely eliminated when television is audible to the child," said Christakis.

"These results may explain the association between infant television exposure and delayed language development," Christakis said.

Constant exposure to television could also explain attentional and cognitive delays in children, he said, since language development is believed to be key in brain development in early childhood.

For the study, 329 children ranging in age from two months to four years wore special vests with a chest pocket that held a small digital recorder.

The children wore the vests on random days for up to two years. The recorder captured everything the child said and heard during continuous 12 to 16 hour periods, and was only removed when the child napped or slept, was bathed or went for a ride in the car.

When the researchers counted the number of words uttered by adults and vocalisations by children, as well as vocal interactions between grown-ups and kids, they found that having the telly on resulted in significant reductions in all speech, regardless of whether it was being actively watched or just on in the background.

"Since 30 per cent of American household report having the television always on, even when no one is watching, these findings have grave implications for language acquisition and perhaps even early brain development," Christakis said, counselling grown-ups against using the telly as a babysitter.

"Television is not only a poor caregiver substitute, but it actually reduces the number of language sounds and words babies hear, vocalise and therefore learn," he said.

"We are increasingly technologising infancy, which may prove harmful to the next generation of adults."

The study was published in the June issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. - AFP/ar

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.