HEALTH WATCH : A TV Guide
What if the rate of a recognized life-shortening disease was found to have virtually doubled among American children over the last 15 years? The expected result would be a national cry of alarm, followed by calls for a major federal program to deal with the threat. In fact such an epidemic is occurring. The response to it, though, has been strangely muted.
Over the last 15 years, according to published studies, extreme obesity among children ages 6 to 11 has increased by a huge 98%. As many as one in four American kids may be seriously overweight. Why? A new report in the medical journal Pediatrics points to major physiological changes that TV watching can produce.
“Television viewing has a fairly profound lowering effect on metabolic rate and may be a primary mechanism for the relationship between obesity and amount of television viewing,” says the report. The metabolic rate measures how much energy the body is expending. Energy--calories--consumed but not used tends to be stored as fat. What the new study found is that staring at the tube produces a metabolic rate “significantly” lower than when a child is simply resting. Consider the 26 hours a week that the typical 6-to-11-year-old spends in front of the TV, add to that the high-fat snacking that so often occurs, and you have a powerful explanation for the obesity epidemic.
Obesity’s link with a number of diseases is now well-established. The warning signs are clear. Parents who want healthier kids would be wise to start putting strict limits on TV viewing time.
