The Centers for Disease Control and the Oregon Public Health Division has revealed that almost one in five two year olds has a television in their bedroom.

These children watch more than two hours of programming every day. Excessive exposure of infants to television is associated with impaired cognitive, language, and emotional development as well as impaired sleep schedules and increased risk of obesity. The study showed that infants without TVs in their rooms were much more likely to experience 4 or more outings away from home each week.

Many parents believe that solid food before bedtime enhances the sleep duration of their infants. However, researchers have highlighted that the early introduction of solid food and television viewing are significant risk factors for shorter sleep through two years old. At age one year the impact of solid food introduced before 4 months of age was greater than maternal prenatal depression. Amazingly, each hour of television viewing per week shortened sleep by .11 hours per day!

PositiveTip: Babies need to be breast fed if at all possible until they are really ready for solid foods. Keep the TV off too!

Two previous blogs in this series talked about “Things to Know About Your Kids Sleep Habits” and “How Much Sleep Do Kids Need?” So, let’s take a look at what can be done.

A report from Stanford University gave these recommendations:

In a recent post I examined some of the ways that excessive use of electronic media can be a danger to young people. But how does media exposure affect children's school performance? 

Watching television is very common among youth, as is computer use, and both of these are related to childhood obesity. The reason for this relationship seems to be two-fold: watching television not only takes away from time when kids would otherwise be physically active, but they also tend to snack while watching TV. Computer use and eating do not usually occur together, but excessive computer use also absorbs significant time when kids should be physically active.

PositiveTip: Observe when your kids usually watch television and use the computer--then plan a routine where you regularly walk or play with them at that time.

Watching TV will Make You Diabetic Watching TV is bad for your health. Watching TV will make you diabetic. Here is the story. The TV viewing habits of more than 50,000 women from 11 states were recently analyzed as part of the Nurses’ Health Study.

During six years of observation, 1515 of these formerly healthy women developed diabetes. The TV viewing habits of these women were factored in with interesting results.The women who watched 40 hours of TV per week were twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes over the 6 year period compared with those who only watched 1-2 hours of TV per week.

High Definition TV and huge screens have enhanced our home entertainment. Add surround sound and we are immersed in sights and sounds that are truly mesmerizing. Unfortunately, the experience is entirely passive. You don’t have to move a muscle. You just sit there watching and snacking.

The association between the time spent viewing TV and the development of obesity and diabetes is well known. In a study just published, researchers in Australia discovered additiional hazards of TV viewing. This study tracked TV viewing and disease development in 8800 adults followed for nearly 7 years.