LIMITING TELEVISION and computer use may help overweight children lose weight, research published today suggests.
By using a monitoring device to decrease the children's viewing time by 50 per cent, both calorie intake and body mass index (BMI) were reduced over a two-year period.
Researchers from the University of Buffalo, New York, selected 70 overweight children aged four to seven who watched television or played computer games for at least 14 hours per week.
For the study, their families agreed to have a monitoring device installed on each television or computer monitor in the home. The device set weekly allowances for TV and computer use. Parents set the time allowance but the children themselves chose how and when to spend it. Each family member had an individual code to activate the electronic devices.
One half of the children were randomly assigned to a group in which researchers reduced their weekly screen time allowance by 10 per cent per week, until a 50 per cent reduction was reached. The other children formed a control group with no reduction in TV or computer use.
In addition, the children with a weekly viewing limit were offered additional incentives, in the form of money and a star chart, if they watched even less than the amount available.
All of the children had their television viewing, calorie intake, physical activity and BMI measured every six months for two years.
The results, published in the medical journal Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, showed that TV and computer use decreased by an average of 17.5 hours per week in the group whose viewing time was restricted. This was associated with a reduction of almost 150 kcalories of energy per day in dietary intake.
Modest reductions in BMI were also found in the intervention group, but there was no change in physical activity levels between the two sets of young children.
Previous research has shown an association between television viewing and obesity; advertising a commercial food product in a cartoon prompts preschool children to eat more of the product.
The electronic device used to limit TV and computer viewing costs in the region of $100 (approximately €150). The authors say it has the advantage of eliminating daily confrontation between parents and children.
"Perhaps most important, the device puts the choice of when to watch television in the child's control, as opposed to a rule such as no television time until homework is completed," the researchers said.