MONTREAL — Early exposure to television is detrimental to children's
health, academic achievement and social development, warned a Canadian study
published on Monday.
Researchers found that every additional hour spent watching television at 29
months, beyond US recommended guidelines, corresponded to small decreases in
classroom engagement, math achievements, and time spent on physical activity
in later years.
As well, it lead to increases in victimization by classmates, higher
consumption of soft drinks and snacks, and more body fat by the time
children reached the age of 10, according to the study.
"Common sense would suggest that television exposure replaces time that
could be spent engaging in other developmentally enriching activities and
tasks that foster cognitive, behavioral and motor development," the
researchers said.
Past studies of adolescents' television viewing habits found this to be
true. This study is the first to look at how television affects much younger
children.
"Broadcasting has an educational orientation when targeting preschoolers,
which might have some cognitive benefits," the researchers opined.
"Nevertheless, preschool televiewing remains a cognitively passive activity
at a time when key experiences for developing attention and behavioral
self-regulation are expected to occur."
Children in this "critical period," for example, learn how to process
information, interact with their environment and eventually use logic to
understand math and science.
Television watching had no impact on reading skills, the study noted.
The researchers asked parents to note their children's viewing habits at 29
months and 53 months of age. At 10 years, parents and teachers then reported
on the 1,314 children's academic abilities, health and well-being.
The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages any television exposure
during infancy and less than two hours per day beyond two years of age.
Children in the study at 29 months watched an average of 8.82 hours of
television per week, rising to 14.85 hours by 53 months.
The study led by the University of Montreal's Linda Pagani was published in
the current issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of
Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Source : AFP
