Neuroscience
Barely a day goes by that obesity isn’t mentioned in the British media – indeed, news reports suggest we’re now the fattest nation in Europe and our children among the laziest.
One alleged culprit is TV, with a 2005 BMJ report finding that three-year-olds who watch more than eight hours TV per week are at increased risk of obesity. Interventions aimed at reducing TV watching in children have met with some success, now Amy Gorin and colleagues at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Centre in America have piloted what they say is the first intervention targeting the whole family.
The typical TV viewing habits of six families were monitored over four days using commercially available devices connected between the families’ TVs and their power supplies. For eight weeks these same devices were then used to limit the families’ TV viewing to 75 per cent of their typical amount. To complement this, the families were also sent a pack full of advice on ways for the family to watch less TV and suggestions for alternative activities.
After eight weeks, the TV viewing restriction was removed, and the time the families spent watching TV was again recorded for four days and compared with their original habits. The families had originally watched an average of 7.45 hours per day, but at follow up, this was reduced to an average of 3.73 hours a day. All the families said they would recommend using the ‘TV Allowance’ devices.
The researchers said more work was needed to establish whether this improvement would be seen long-term, and whether the participants' health had benefited from the intervention or if instead they had simply switched from watching TV to another sedentary activity.
__________________________________
Gorin, A., Raynor, H., Chula-Maguire, K. & Wing, R. (2006). Decreasing household television time: A pilot study of a combined behavioural and environmental intervention. Behavioural Interventions, 21, 273-280.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to White Dot, the international campaign against TV.
- Do Television And Video Games Impact On The Wellbeing Of Younger Children?
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Neuroscience
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Barely a day goes by that obesity isn’t mentioned in the British media – indeed, news reports suggest we’re now the fattest nation in Europe and our children among the laziest.One alleged culprit is TV, with a 2005 BMJ report finding that three-year-olds who watch more than eight hours TV per week are at increased risk of obesity. Interventions aimed at reducing TV watching in children have met with some success, now Amy Gorin and colleagues at the Weight Control and Diabetes Research Centre in America have piloted what they say is the first intervention targeting the whole family.
The typical TV viewing habits of six families were monitored over four days using commercially available devices connected between the families’ TVs and their power supplies. For eight weeks these same devices were then used to limit the families’ TV viewing to 75 per cent of their typical amount. To complement this, the families were also sent a pack full of advice on ways for the family to watch less TV and suggestions for alternative activities.
After eight weeks, the TV viewing restriction was removed, and the time the families spent watching TV was again recorded for four days and compared with their original habits. The families had originally watched an average of 7.45 hours per day, but at follow up, this was reduced to an average of 3.73 hours a day. All the families said they would recommend using the ‘TV Allowance’ devices.
The researchers said more work was needed to establish whether this improvement would be seen long-term, and whether the participants' health had benefited from the intervention or if instead they had simply switched from watching TV to another sedentary activity.
__________________________________
Gorin, A., Raynor, H., Chula-Maguire, K. & Wing, R. (2006). Decreasing household television time: A pilot study of a combined behavioural and environmental intervention. Behavioural Interventions, 21, 273-280.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
Link to White Dot, the international campaign against TV.
- Do Television And Video Games Impact On The Wellbeing Of Younger Children?
We’re often bombarded with panicky stories in the news about the dangers of letting children watch too much television or play too many video games. The scientific reality is that we still know very little about how the use of electronic media affects...
- Reading To Babies Gives Them A Head-start
Toddlers read to daily by their mothers from an early age have bigger vocabularies and superior cognitive skills. Helen Raikes and colleagues asked 2,581 mothers from poor families enrolled on the Early Head Start programme in America how often they read...
- Do Mums Know About Child Development?
An American study has tested how much mothers know about child development, safety issues in raising children, infant sleeping habits and nutrition. Two hundred and three women at a paediatric clinic and an obstetric clinic in a southern state in America...
- "ripple Effect:" Weight Loss Among Couples
Maybe you heard about a weight loss "ripple effect" among couples over the past few months; the story had crossed my radar, but I didn't realize the study's author was a psychology professor at UConn. There's an article in the Nov. 10 issue...
- Pearl Research Assistant Openings! Apply Today!
Undergraduate Research Assistant Positions University of Maryland Prevention and Early Adversity Research Lab (PEARL) Description: The Prevention & Early Adversity Research Lab (PEARL) is seeking undergraduate research assistants for the fall and...