Get your Children Away from Computer and Back to the Playfields:

Jojy Cheriyan MD; MPH-April26-2013

Our children are becoming 'couch potatoes ' and more evidence is getting added up daily to the fact that time spent in 'screen time' is adversely affecting the health and life of young children. (Screen time means time spent in watching TV, computers and playing video games).

A study, by a team from five Canadian hospitals, was published online in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, in which the researchers studied 536 white children aged 8 to 10 years who had at least one obese biological parent.

The aim of the study was to examine the combined associations between time spent in moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity and time spent in sedentary activities in relation to cardio-metabolic risk factors.

Analyses showed that higher levels of physical activity were associated with significantly lower waist circumference, fasting triglycerides, and diastolic blood pressure, and with higher HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol), regardless of sedentary time.

Overall, the study found that ,a high level of moderate to vigorous physical activity was associated with reduced cardio-metabolic risk in this sample of children, regardless of their amount of sedentary behavior. The type of sedentary behavior (i.e., screen time) might be more important than overall sedentary time in relation to cardio-metabolic risk.

Some earlier scientific studies reported that children who spent more time in front of screen tend to eat more junk foods that lead to obesity.

In January 2013 jpmnews.com reported on a scientific study published in the Journal of Pediatrics that Kids watching TV/Computer near bedtime get poor sleep and behavioral problems.

Moderate to vigorous physical activity in this study was considered as 60 minutes of vigorous exercise 6 days a week. Screen time of more than 2 hours per day was considered sedentary time.

Based on their observations, the authors of this study suggested that parents should encourage their children to work in extra exercise whenever they can, whether by doing active chores or joining organized activities like group sports.

They also emphasized that such programs designed to increase childhood activity should be "a family affair". If a parent is physically active, the child is more likely to be physically active.

But if the child goes home and sees his parents sitting around in front of the TV, even organized sports will have little long-term impact on their heart health.

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