Bedroom TV Sets up Children to Fail
By Andrew Clark
It is a tempting price to pay for a bit of peace and quiet, but parents who succumb to their children's pleas for a television in the bedroom could be being cruel rather than kind.
Research published yesterday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that too much television makes children more likely to grow up to be obese, addicted to smoking and poorly qualified.
A bedroom set is particularly damaging, according to a group of American pediatricians. Their research found that children with a set of their own score up to 15 per cent worse in maths, language and reading tests.
Child health specialists believe bedroom televisions make it harder for young people to fall asleep. Jane Roberts, president of the pressure group Young Media Australia, said bedroom televisions were an open invitation for children to watch inappropriate programs.
Television is the most popular leisure activity for young people in Australia, who watch an average of 22 hours a fortnight during school terms.
The American study found that computers had the opposite effect, by actually improving children's test scores. Even computer games can improve attention and visual skills.
There was more bad news for television addicts in a long-term study of 1000 adults born in New Zealand during the 1970s. Robert Hancox of the University of Otago found that those who viewed for more than two hours a day during their childhood were more likely to have problems with their weight and with nicotine by the age of 26.
Dr Hancox urged parents to limit their children to little more than an hour's viewing each day.
"Kids have got a right to relax and enjoy themselves just like anybody else," he said. "But the main message is that whatever it is they're watching, it isn't doing them any good."
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Interesting study - televsion bad - -video games Good? So, when you were a kid did you have a television in your room? Do your own kids have television sets?