Attention-deficit risk linked to young kids' TV time, study finds
Monday, April 05, 2004
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2001895819_tvhurtskids05
m.html

By Warren King
Seattle Times medical reporter

Child-development experts have long warned there are plenty of
reasons for kids not to watch too much television. Now a major
Seattle-based study shows that very young children who spend hours
in front of the tube risk having attention problems when they reach
school age.

In the first research of its kind, scientists at Children's Hospital
& Regional Medical Center and their colleagues found the risk
increases by the hour.

For every hour of television watched daily by children at ages 1 and
3, the risk of attention problems at age 7 increases nearly 10
percent.

"The study adds one more reason for children not to watch TV," said
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a Children's pediatrician and lead scientist
for study.

Other research has shown that children who watch television
excessively have increased risks of obesity and aggressive behavior.
The new study suggests young children who watch too much have a
greater chance of being among the 4 to 12 percent of youngsters in
the United States with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD).

Children in the study with attention problems at age 7 were more
likely to have difficulty concentrating and to be easily confused,
impulsive, restless or obsessive about things in their lives. The
problems were similar to symptoms for ADHD.

About 10 percent of the youngsters in the study had the difficulties
at age 7.

"A child that watched, say, six hours a day would be 60 percent more
likely to have these problems at age 7 than one who watched no
television," said Christakis, also director of the Child Health
Institute at the University of Washington. "That child would have
greater challenges in school."

Conducted by researchers at Children's and the UW, the study is
reported in the April edition of the journal Pediatrics. It assessed
the television-viewing time of 1,278 children at age 1 and 1,345
children at age 3 — all participants in a continuing government-
sponsored study that looks at many aspects of children's lives.

The researchers found that the children watched from 0 to 16 hours a
day, with an average of 2.2 hours at age 1 and 3.6 hours at age 3.
Content of the television programming was not analyzed.

The study took into account several factors, including gestational
age, prenatal substance use by the mother and socioeconomic status.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV before age 2 and
that children over 2 be limited to one to two hours a day of
educational material on TV or other screen media.

The recommendations appear far from reality.

Some 43 percent of children under 2 watch TV every day, and 26
percent have a TV in their bedrooms, according to a recent survey of
parents by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

In their earliest years, children's brains are undergoing rapid
development, both with their brain cells and with how brain impulses
are regulated by substances called neurotransmitters. Studies have
shown that young laboratory rats given high levels of visual
stimulation have abnormal patterns of brain cells. Scientists say
increasing evidence shows that young children's brains are similarly
vulnerable.

The rapidly changing images and sounds of television, even in
educational children's programming, are certainly mesmerizing to
young children but can be overstimulating, scientists say.

Television "is not like a piece of real life," said Christakis. "But
it may develop as a child's reality ... a child who later learns
that that is not the pace at which events unfold. Yet he is expected
to be able to focus."

Christakis said his two children, 3 and 6, are limited to two hours
of TV a week, all of it on weekends, always children's videos or PBS
programs. They also may watch a movie on family movie night on the
weekend.

Child-development experts both decry the effects of television
itself and emphasize it takes away from time children need for other
activities.

"The problem with watching TV is that kids are not passive learners;
they learn by doing," said Lenore Rubin, a child psychologist for
Public Health-Seattle & King County.

Rubin says TV also takes time away from nurturing relationships.
Children who are well nurtured learn better and generally do better
in life, she said.

"There are really better things to do than watch TV," she
said. "What's better is to help cook ... or fold laundry or set the
table or take a walk and look at the leaves."

Laura Taylor of Shoreline limits her 3-year-old daughter's
television watching to one hour a day of children's programming and
children's computer-game time to about two hours a week. The
programming is almost always interactive, in which characters ask
viewers to help them solve problems.

The idea, Taylor said, is for the TV and computer to be more than a
baby-sitter. She is very selective to avoid the violence and
sexuality of exaggerated body features found in some animated
children's materials.

"Kids seem so much happier when they haven't been watching TV,"
Taylor said. "When they're playing dress up or games outside with
other kids, or finding other ways to use their time."

Christakis hopes next to conduct a seven-year research project to
see if children whose television watching is significantly reduced
or eliminated have lower rates of attention problems. Parents,
teachers and others will be asked to discourage TV watching, he
said.