Time to wean your teen off TV…
If you’ve given in and installed a TV in your teen’s room you might want to think again. University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have found that older adolescents who have a TV in their bedroom are less likely to engage in healthy activities such as exercising, eating fruits or vegetables, and enjoying family meals. They also consume larger quantities of sweetened beverages and fast food, are categorized as heavy TV watchers, and read or study less than teens without TVs in their bedrooms.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 68% of children have a TV in their bedroom. Studies suggest tweens and teens spend upwards of three hours a day watching TV
“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents remove TV sets from their children’s bedrooms,” says Daheia Barr-Anderson, first author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the University’s Adolescent Health Protection Research Training Program. “Despite this recommendation, almost two-thirds of our sample had a bedroom TV, which appears to be a factor for less than optimal behavior.”
A study group of 781 socio-economically and ethnically diverse teens participating in the School of Public Health Project Eating Among Teens (EAT) study reported on their TV viewing habits, study habits, grades, diet, exercise habits, and family connectedness. Nearly two-thirds of the participants had a TV in their bedroom or sleeping area, and those who did watched four to five more hours of TV each week.
Girls with a TV in their bedrooms spent less time in vigorous activity each week than girls without TVs in their rooms. They also ate fewer vegetables, and had fewer family meals. Boys with TVs in their rooms not only had lower fruit intake and fewer family meals, they also had a lower grade point average compared with their counterparts with no TVs in the bedroom.
Barr-Anderson suggests that the first step parents can take to help their teens decrease unhealthy behaviors is to keep TVs out of the bedroom altogether and remove existing bedroom TVs. “Our findings suggest the importance of not having a TV in a child’s bedroom,” says Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, principal investigator of Project EAT. “When families upgrade their living room TV, they may want to resist the temptation to put the older set in their child’s bedroom.”