Parenting Information

Overheard while in line at a grocery store: Enjoy your baby! People spend their children's first year wondering if they'll ever walk and talk - and the next 20 years wondering if they'll ever sit down and shut up.

Duh!

Did it ever occur to you that eating crackers in bed is a crummy habit??

Ouch

Seen in Passing:
a Tae-Kwon-Do school right next door to a chiropractor's office

TV and kids

++ I have heard and read much discussion in recent years about the effects of TV-watching on children. The biggest health-related concern is that when a person is watching television, s/he is not physically active, and may be eating mindlessly. This contributes to obesity and all the health complications associated with it. There are also education-related concerns: some programming will teach children the alphabet, how to count (often in more than one language), etc., but children are not learning social skills in the process. Success in school starts with being able to pay attention for more than a few seconds, being able to follow instructions, respect for authority, communicating effectively with others and being able to get along with them, etc. Children can start learning these skills by the time they learn to walk; but, learning pre-math and pre-reading skills depends on developmental readiness. Ask any teacher you know!

Now, the ramifications of these issues have been quantified by a large, long-running Canadian study of over 1300 children, which was recently featured in the Los Angeles Times, and carried by other newspapers. The study first looked at the amount of TV per week that was watched by 2-1/2 year olds. Seven years later (and periodically between), the researchers at Institut de la Stastique du Quebec looked at the amount of TV the children, then in 4th grade, were watching, and at how they were faring in school. Here is an outline of their findings:

• average TV viewing at 29 months = 8.8 hr/wk; at 4-1/2 years = 14.8 hr/wk, and continued to increase
• For every extra hour/week of TV viewing at 29 months, that child, by 4th grade, has measurably lowers levels of classroom engagement, poorer math skills, higher body mass index (BMI - a measure of degree of fatness), and a higher risk of being bullied.
• As TV viewing increased among their parents, fourth-graders had an increase in over-all screen time (TV, videos, computer games, etc.), increased BMI, and lower level of physical fitness.

The researchers surmise that the brains of toddlers are developing the basics of "effortful control." TV-watching somehow disrupts this process, and the results become more and more worrisome as children progress through school and are exposed to more and more challenging subject matter. They did not address the bullying issue, but my take on that is that children who are less fit don't do as well in sports, and they appear to the bullier be less able to stand up for themselves. Other research has shown that watching any kind of programming before the age of 2 does not confer any benefits in learning language or motor skills.

The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that children under the age of 2 years not watch any TV, and that it be limited in older children. In the United States, toddlers average about 1-1/2 hours per day watching TV.

Bottom line in practice: The experts cited by the public health agency I work for recommend no screen time for children under the age of 2, and no more than 10 hours/week for older children. Parents are advised to monitor the programs watched by the children in their care. Children are great at copying behavior they see, so it is best that they are not often exposed to violence and other asocial behavior. If the program has a lot of merit, otherwise, as documentaries sometimes do, discuss it with the children. I often add that instead of TV, children can be entertained by reading or by imaginative play, such as with dolls, toy cars, etc.; that some active play is also necessary for good development; and that even if siblings are arguing (and driving parents nuts), they are learning about talk and behavior that is - or is not - acceptable to others. I also point out what the characters on the screen are eating. It sure isn't 5 servings/day of vegetables!

Fat Lights the World

Sometimes, I think people have too much time on their hands!  A few years ago I read the results of a "study" in which the researchers used health surveys to estimate how many people in the USA were over-weight, and by how much. They figured out how many pounds of excess body fat this added up to, and calculated how much energy it would take to pile on that fat and maintain it for a year: what it took to grow and transport the food and prepare it, for example. They converted this to the equivalent amount of electricity. That many kilowatt hours per year would have provided all the residential lighting needs for Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and 6 other major cities! (I no longer remember which other cities, but the situation would be worse by now, anyhow.)