Want your toddlers to grow up smarter and thinner? Keep them away from the television set.
That's the tough message from researchers at the University of Montreal, who say kids exposed to lots of television as toddlers have more problems in school and poorer health behaviours by the time they're in Grade 4.
Linda S. Pagani, a psychosocial professor at the Université de Montréal and researcher at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre, led a team who looked at data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, which included children born in 1997 and 1998. They wanted to to see how TV exposure at age two impacted the kids' academic success, lifestyle choices and well-being.
They focused on 1,314 toddlers whose parents reported how much TV their kids watched at two-and-a-half years of age and then again at four-and-a-half years old. The children's teachers were asked to evaluate academic, psychosocial and health habits, while the kids' body mass index (BMI) was measured at 10 years old.
According to the kids' parental, the average time spent watching TV at 29 months was 8.8 hours a week. By 53 months, that had risen to 14.8 hours.
The researchers report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine that each additional hour of television in early childhood corresponded to a:
- seven per cent decrease in classroom engagement
- six per cent decrease in math achievement (with no harmful effects on later reading)
- 10 per cent increase in victimization by classmates (peer rejection, being teased, assaulted or insulted by other students)
- 13 per cent decrease in weekend physical activity
- nine per cent decrease in general physical activity
- nine per cent higher consumption of soft drinks
- 10 per cent peak in snacks intake
- five per cent increase in BMI
The authors say that early childhood is a critical period for brain development and formation of behaviour and that watching lots of TV during this period can lead to "future unhealthy habits."
Although the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that kids under four watch less than two hours of TV per day, and kids under two watch no TV at all, the authors note that many parents aren't aware of those guidelines.
"Television is not a harmless piece of furniture," Pagani told CTV News. "Parents should heed the guidelines of zero television exposure from birth to age two."
The problem with TV, says Pagani, is that it encourages a sedentary lifestyle, and the toddlers years are a time when passive mental and physical habits can become ingrained.
She says TV exposure replaces time that could be spent doing other developmentally enriching activities that foster cognitive, behavioural, and motor development.
