April 30, 2001 - Infants and Toddlers May Be Watching More Than Three Hours of TV Daily, According to New Cincinnati Children's Study
CINCINNATI -- A new study of children in the United States shows that one of every four children less than 3 years old may be watching at least three hours of television each weekday. In addition, the Children's Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati study shows that 40 percent of two-year-olds watch at least three hours of TV a day.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends no TV at all for children under 2 and no more than two hours a day for older children.
"While we don't know the content or quality of viewing, recent studies have shown that school-age children who watch less television are less aggressive and have less body fat regardless of programming," says Robert S. Kahn, M.D., a physician in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's and the study's senior author. "A better understanding of TV viewing patterns in very young children may be one important step toward preventing these later health problems."
The study will be presented at 4:30 p.m., April 30, 2001, at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Baltimore. It is the first large-scale examination of TV viewing in such a young audience.
The study also found that single mothers and mothers with less education are more likely to have children whose TV viewing exceeds AAP guidelines. And, children who watch at least three hours of TV a day at age 2 are more than twice as likely as other children to watch at least three hours a day at age 6.
"The negative effects of TV on school-age children are well-documented, and the AAP guidelines are based on the idea that infants and toddlers need human interaction for optimal development," says Laura K. Certain, B.A., a research assistant at Cincinnati Children's and the study's lead author.
"Given rising concerns about excessive TV viewing and its effects on children, the results of this study suggest greater attention needs to be focused on how viewing behaviors develop in these very young children," Certain says.
The study involved data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which included data on television viewing for 2,858 children born between 1988 and 1998. In the survey, mothers were asked how much TV their children watched on a typical weekday.
Contact Information
Jim Feuer (jfeuer@chmcc.org), 513-636-4420
