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Excess TV viewing makes kids sick: Study

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, JAN. 25. A new study on excessive viewing of television by children here has dispelled the myth that TV makes the children more intelligent and has identified an association between TV viewing and diseases such as obesity, behavioural dysfunction, epilepsy and general fatigue.

The reasons for these diseases among the children include prolonged viewing hours, lack of physical activity, inadequate sleep and consumption of non-nutritive foodstuff, says the study conducted by Jaipur-based Child Care and Development Society. It highlighted low levels of creativity, imagination and conceptualisation among the children addicted to TV viewing.

The study covered about 300 children from Jaipur and nearby rural areas in the age group of 8 to 16 years between July and October 2004. Its results were announced here recently while making a comparison of the data collected in the urban and rural areas. The villages covered in the study were Achrol, Nadbai, Khetwada, Virat Nagar, Ghatwadi and Phali.

Ashok Gupta, a paediatrician, and Satyendra Singh, a social scientist and nutritionist - who conducted the study - pointed out that though 80 per cent of the parents felt that their children had become more intelligent by viewing TV, their claim was not corroborated by intelligence testing.

Almost 20 per cent of the children covered under the study were found suffering from obesity and 90 per cent of them belonged to the higher income group. Other disorders reported were headache, epilepsy, apathy and general weakness. Late sleeping was observed in 53 per cent children, while 73 per cent children cut down their outdoor sports activities.

About 42 per cent parents blamed late sleeping for their wards not finishing their homework and 32 per cent felt that this was responsible for their children's irritability and abnormal behaviour. Another serious consequence of TV viewing was reflected in the linguistic skills of children with 70 per cent of them depicting a significant distortion of the spoken language.

"The distortion was found both in terms of content and grammar in conformity with the kind of language used in the TV programmes," said Dr. Gupta, who is a member of the National Executive Board of the Indian Academy of Paediatrics. He said the TV programmes should be divided into different age categories to avoid children's exposure to subjects such as murder, rape and violence.

Taking a note of the impact of TV viewing on children's ambitions, the study found that 78 per cent of them wanted to become rich persons, while only 4 per cent wanted to grow as social workers. The remaining 18 per cent wanted to be artists or political leaders. The study also detected a sharp urban-rural divide in the TV viewing hours in view of non-availability of multi-channel TV in villages.

TV viewing has not resulted in any major increase in the interest in political or scientific issues among the children from higher income groups, said the study. However, 88 per cent children from the middle income group and 52 per cent from the lower socio-economic groups revealed an increased interest in these areas.

The study, in its conclusions, underlined the need to curtail prolonged viewing of TV and regulate the contents of advertisements for children, especially by striking a balance in the commercials relating to food items. It said the TV programmes for children should end in time to avoid late sleeping hours and the quality of language used in them should be improved.

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