Teens Spending Too Much Screen Time

WEDNESDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- A new survey reports that teenagers spend far toomany hours a week in front of TVs and computers, and those in poor neighborhoods have even more"screen time."

"The take-home message is that we have to find out why some of these kids don't have healthieralternatives in their neighborhoods," said study author Tracie A. Barnett, a researcher at Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital Research Center in Montreal.

While it's possible that kids spend their time at home watching television documentaries andperusing classic novels on their computers, researchers assume that they're not exercising theirbrains or their bodies. Some studies have suggested a link between TV watching and obesity inchildren, Barnett noted.

In fact, a study published earlier this month reported that cutting TV and computer time in halfhelped younger children eat less and lose weight.

To figure out what teenagers were up to, Barnett and her colleagues surveyed 1,293 seventh-gradestudents from 10 Montreal high schools in 1999 and followed many of them for five years.

The students reported the number of hours they spent watching TV, playing video games, or usingcomputers. The findings were expected to be released Wednesday at the American HeartAssociations Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, inColorado Springs, Colo.

Half of the boys and a quarter of the girls reported spending an average of more than 42 hours aweek in front of electronic screens. TV was the most common form of screen use, accounting for 85percent of the time.

Girls who lived in the poorest neighborhoods were five times more likely to spend the most time infront of screens than those in the richest neighborhoods.

The girls in poor neighborhoods "might be more vulnerable to perceptions that their neighborhoodsare not safe," Barnett suggested. "It's possible that the boys are a little less affected, and they go outanyway."

Future research will try to determine why there's a link between poverty and time spent in front ofscreens, Barnett said.

Frederick Zimmerman, an associate professor of health services at the University of Washington andSeattle Children's Hospital Research Institute, said parents in poor neighborhoods face toughchoices when they decide whether to send their kids outside, where it might be dangerous, or letthem sit in front of electronic screens inside.

"Parents -- particularly those in low-income neighborhoods -- face an agonizing choice between thedangers outside the home and those emanating from the TV screen or computer monitor,"Zimmerman said. "Sometimes, it is tempting to believe that the dangers posed by extensive TV orcomputer use are not real, but they are," he said. "Numerous studies have documented theassociations between excessive TV viewing and obesity, smoking, alcohol use, violent and aggressivebehavior, tolerance of aggression against women, and poor school performance."

More information

To learn more about kids and TV watching, check kidshealth.org.

SOURCES: Tracie A. Barnett, Ph.D., researcher, Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital Research Center,and assistant professor, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal;Frederick J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., Child Health Institute, Department of Health Services andDepartment of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle; March 12, 2008, presentation,American Heart Association's Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology andPrevention, Colorado Springs, Colo.