| Childhood Obesity driven by longer drives to school not so much from TV watching
Childhood Obesity driven by longer drives to school not so much from TV watching
5:00AM Tuesday March 27, 2007
By Jonathan Brown
It is a common enough sight and one that can send parents shrill with despair. Their fit and healthy teenage offspring idling away the best years of their lives inert in front of the television screen.
But according to new research, watching a lot of television and playing computer games does not automatically make your child a couch potato.
An analysis of the activity diaries of 1500 12-16-year-olds by Loughborough University in Britain found the number of hours that youngsters spent in front of the box or on the internet was a poor indicator of their overall levels of activity.
There was also little evidence to suggest a major link between screen-based entertainment and obesity, according to the study's leader Professor Stuart Biddle.
"The idea that a child sitting there watching television like a couch potato is a problem is far too simplistic. There is no strong linkage between how much TV you watch and how much time you play competitive sports. There is room for both," he said.
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