TVs in Kids’ Bedroom May Be Making Them Fat - East Idaho News
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TVs in Kids’ Bedroom May Be Making Them Fat

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GETTY 3414 KidTV?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1393926872695Alexey Avdeev/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — More than a third of children and adolescents in the U.S. are overweight or obese, and if your child has a television in their bedroom, they may be at an increased risk of becoming a part of that group. A new study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics finds a link between TVs in the bedroom and a higher body mass index in kids.  

A telephone survey of 6,500 children, ages 10 to 14 years old, asked if they had a bedroom television, and computed their body mass index (BMI). Sixty percent of children reported a bedroom TV, and that was associated with a subtle but significant increase in BMI. The researchers then followed these children for four years, and found that there was a continued association of excess BMI.

“The best recommendation is to not have a TV in your children’s bedroom. There’s really no reason they need to have their own TV,” pediatrician Dr. Sara Lappe of the Cleveland Clinic told ABC News.

After looking over the research, Lappe, who did not work on the study, said it appears that children with their own personal television had a body mass index that was about half a point higher than children who did not have a TV in their bedroom.

Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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