ArticlesAssociation between child and adolescent television viewing and adult health: a longitudinal birth cohort study
Introduction
Children in developed countries watch a lot of television. Surveys suggest that time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence might even exceed time spent in school.1 There is increasing concern that the amount of television watched by children could have adverse effects on health. Television viewing might not only displace more energetic activities (contributing to poor fitness and obesity), but also encourage poor dietary habits, violent behaviour, and substance abuse due to the messages conveyed through programme content and advertising.2
Studies in children and adolescents have linked television viewing to obesity,3, 4, 5, 6 poor physical fitness,7, 8 lipid abnormalities,9 and smoking.10 However, several studies have found the associations to be weak or non-significant,11, 12, 13 and none has addressed the long-term effects of childhood television viewing. In particular, there is no information on whether childhood television viewing affects adult health. To address this issue, we examined the association between child and adolescent television viewing and a range of adult health indicators in a birth cohort of approximately 1000 New Zealanders.
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Participants
Study members were born in Dunedin, Otago province, New Zealand, between April, 1972, and March, 1973.14 We invited all children who still resided in Otago to participate in the first follow-up assessment at age 3 years. 1037 children (91% of eligible births; 535 [52%] boys, 502 [48%] girls) attended the initial follow-up, constituting the base sample for our study. Further follow-up assessments were undertaken at ages 5 (n=991), 7 (n=954), 9 (n=955), 11 (n=925), 13 (n=850), 15 (n=976), 18
Results
table 1 summarises the mean viewing hours reported, and their correlations between ages. Child and adolescent viewing (age 5–15 years) correlated with lower childhood socioeconomic status (n=1013, r=0·31, p<0·0001), increased parental smoking (n=998, r=0·11, p=0·0005), higher maternal and paternal body-mass indices (n=839, r=0·09, p=0·0086; n=798, r=0·11, p=0·0013, respectively), and higher body-mass index at age 5 years (n=996, r=0·11, p=0·0004). Physical activity at 15 years of age did not
Discussion
Our results show that television viewing during childhood and adolescence is associated with overweight, poor cardiorespiratory fitness, raised serum cholesterol, and cigarette smoking in early adulthood. We found no significant association between television viewing and blood pressure.
To measure television viewing we used parental reports (for ages 5, 7, 9, and 11 years) and self-reports (for ages 13 and 15 years). We have no way to assess the accuracy of these reports. Furthermore, we did not
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