National Turn off TV Next week

Thursday: Health Issues and Ideas

I’ve never considered participating in Turn off TV week.  I love my evenings curling up on the couch, watching my favorite shows with my husband in the quiet darkness of the house.  Law and Order, the Office, Chuck, Heroes, Food Network Challenges… I’ll stop there.

BUT, According to Screentime.org,

1. Seventy percent of day-care centers use TV during a typical day.–Tashman, Billy, “Sorry Ernie, TV isn’t Teaching,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 1994
2. In a study of preschoolers (ages 1-4), a child’s risk of being overweight increased by six percent for every hour of television watched per day.  If that child had a TV in his or her bedroom, the odds of being overweight jumped an additional thirty-one percent for every hour watched.  Preschool children with TVs in their bedroom watched an additional 4.8 hours of TV or videos every week.–Dennison, et.al. 2002
3. Research now indicates that for every hour of television children watch each day, their risk of developing attention-related problems later increases by ten percent.  For example, if a child watches three hours of television each day, the child would be thirty percent more likely to develop attention deficit disorder.–D. Christakis, Pediatrics, April 2004
4. One in four children under the age of two years has a TV in his or her bedroom.–Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital Media Centers, 2003
5. The more TV preschoolers watch, the less well they do academically in the first grade; also, The more TV preschoolers watch, the less well-socialized they are in the first grade.–Burton, Sydney, James Calonico and Dennis McSeveney, “Effects of Preschool Television Watching on First-Grade Children,” Journal of Communication, Summer 1979
6. Children in households where the TV is on “always” or “most of the time” are less likely to read than are children in other homes. Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital Media Centers, 2003
7. Children six and under spend an average of two hours a day using screen media, about the same amount of time they spend playing outside, and well over the amount they spend reading or being read to (39 minutes).–Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital Media Centers, 2003