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/ 11.23.2009 12:00PM
TV Time Doubles in Daycare
SEATTLE: A new study indicates that kids in day care
watch about twice as much TV as their stay-at-home peers. Those in home-based
care watched far more than those in daycare centers as well. The study,
conducted at the University of Washington School of Medicine, evaluated screen
time in 168 child care programs in four states.
It found that among preschool-aged children, those in home-based daycare
watched TV for 2.4 hours a day on average. That’s in addition to the average of
two to three hours of TV kids watch at home. Those in daycare centers watched
far less--24 minutes.
It was led by Dimitri Christakis, M.D., director of the Center for Child
Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and
professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
“It’s alarming to find that so many children in the United States are watching
essentially twice as much television as we previously thought,” Christakis
said. “Research continues to link excessive preschool screen time with language
delay, obesity, attentional problems and even aggression depending upon
content. At the same time, studies show that high quality preschool can be
beneficial to children’s development. Unfortunately, for many children, the
potential benefits of preschool may be being displaced by passive TV viewing. I
suspect many parents are unaware of the frequency and extent of TV viewing in
day care settings. Hopefully, these findings will serve as a wake up call for
them.”
The study looked at television use programs based in Michigan, Florida,
Washington and Massachusetts. Of the 168, 94 were home-based 74 were
center-based programs. TV reliance in home-based daycare centers correlated
with the level of education of staff members. The higher the education level of
staff, the less children were parked in front of a TV screen. No similar
phenomena was identified in center-based programs.
The impact of home-based versus center-based child care programs differed
somewhat depending on educational levels for staff members; having a two- or
four-year college degree was associated with 1.41 fewer hours of television per
day in home-based programs, but no impact of staff education on television use
was observed in center-based programs.
More studies on the impact of TV usage:
October
20, 2009: “Television Access
Linked to Household Debt”
TV is blamed for a multitude of sins--obesity,
vulgarity, violence. Now, researchers at the City University of New York have
discovered that TV also makes people poor.
August 11, 2009: “... Gives Children High Blood Pressure”
Subjects were sedentary on average five hours a day, and spent 1.5 hours in
front of a screen. The kids who watched the most TV (including DVDs and videos)
had the highest blood pressure. Computer use did not yield the same
association.
June 23, 2009: “...Makes People Tired”
“A recent article in the Journal of Labor Economics lays out how American sleep
schedule are, frankly, more televisionistic than circadian.”
June 2, 2009: “... Deteriorates Kids’
Ability to Talk”
Kids and those who take care of them talk less the more they listen to TV,
according to a study from the University of Washington School of Medicine.
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