By Brian Alexander, NBC NEWS
It may not make parents popular, but tossing out the TVs that sit in the corner of most children’s bedrooms may keep them from packing on pounds.
A TV in the bedroom was associated with an extra pound of weight gain a year in a new study. Daniel Law/PA WIRE via AP file.
A study released Monday in JAMA Pediatrics found that 60 percent of children ages 10-14 had TVs in their bedrooms, and those kids gained about one extra pound per year compared to peers who did not — even once the researchers accounted for time spent watching TV.
Dartmouth University researchers collected data from 3,055 children ages 10-14 and their parents, who were taking part in an ongoing survey of American adolescents. After gathering information from telephone interviews in 2003, and then again two and four years later, the researchers found that children who had a TV in the bedroom gained about an extra pound per year, and kept gaining weight all four years.
Though they could not say a TV in the bedroom “causes” weight gain and obesity, the researchers found the effect held even after they controlled for many other factors including socioeconomic status, parenting styles, education levels and total TV viewing time.
There could be several explanations for the connection. For example, last year, a Finnish study found that media presence (like TVs and computers) in a child’s bedroom “predicted significantly shorter sleep duration and later bedtimes.” Less sleep is a well-known trigger of weight gain.
Read the full article by Brian Alexander from NBC News.
