TV Viewing A Main Factor In Child Weight Gain: Emory Study

DECATUR, GA -- Little Johnny may be in hog heaven when he's watching the big-screen TV, but according to a new Emory University study, if he keeps it up there's a good chance he could start to look like one, too. Researchers at the university's Rollins School of Public Health have found a link between TV watching and weight gain.

Analyzing data on U.S. children from the Kindergarten Cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, researchers were able to assess weight gain against several behaviors, including eating habits, sedentary habits and physical activities. The team, made up of Solveig Cunningham, PhD and Sandra Jackson, found that although Body Mass Index (BMI) scores from kindergarten through eighth grade appeared stable, the main predictor of weight gain was television viewing habits.

"We found that health behaviors that are central to recommendations for preventing and reversing childhood obesity -- television viewing, physical activity, and dietary intake – for the most part did not affect children’s changes in weight; instead, children's weight status was highly stable over time," Cunningham said in an Emory news release.

What was even more startling is that the team discovered that the heavier a child got, the more TV they watched, linking a person's weight to their behaviors. The findings caused researchers to advise that children under the age of 5 be targeted for intervention.

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