Time in Front of the Television A Pointer To Childhood Obesity Risk

Dr Jo Salmon and her co-authors from the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research at Deakin University in Melbourne, said a quarter of all Australian children are classified as obese and general practitioners tend to under recognise and under treat childhood obesity. In addition, many parents do not recognise fatness in their own children.

Dr Salmon said that if primary health carers could identify the amount of television watched by a child each day it might help GPs identify risk for both fatness and childhood eating and activity behaviours likely to promote fatness.

The authors examined the television viewing habits of 1560 children from 24 Melbourne primary schools between 1 November 2002 and 30 December 2003.

The research revealed that children who watched television for more than two hours a day were significantly more likely than children who watched television for two hours or less each day to have one or more serves of high energy drinks and to have one or more serves of savoury snacks. They were also less likely to have two or more serves of fruit each day or to participate in any organised sport.

Dr Salmon said the findings may reflect the relationships between television viewing, exposure to food advertising, increased requests for advertised foods, and preferences for the advertised items.

"Television viewing provides a context that encourages frequent snacking or overeating," Dr Salmon said.

Dr Salmon said that while television viewing time appears to be an important indicator of a range of lifestyle behaviours likely to promote fatness over time, further research is needed into the feasibility of the use of this measure by GPs.

The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.

CONTACT Dr Jo SALMON 0425 735 445 / 03 9251 7254

Judith TOKLEY, AMA Public Affairs, 0408 824 306 / 02 6270 5471