Copyright 2008 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved. Applicable FARS/DFARS Restrictions Apply to Government Use.
Epstein et al1 have reported on a thoroughly performed study on the effects of television viewing and computer use on body mass indexes (BMIs) in young children. We believe this study provides important and useful data that will be very helpful in the battle against the growing childhood obesity epidemic. They monitored television watching and computer use as accurately as possible and concluded that reducing these activities resulted in decreased BMIs in young children, which may be related more to changes in energy intake than to changes in physical activity. They also concluded that the intervention (reduction of television watching and computer use) worked best for families of lower social economic status (SES). In the families of higher SES, there was no difference in BMI decrease between the intervention and control groups. The researchers not only reduced television watching and computer use in the intervention group, but they provided both groups with parenting tips, child-appropriate activities, and recipes. They reported a much larger decline in BMI in families of higher SES in both the intervention and control groups than in families of lower SES. We wonder if the educational intervention explains this larger decrease and if an association still exists between the reduction of television watching and computer use with a decrease in BMI in the higher SES group. The educational material might also be a very useful tool (for children from families with higher SES) to reduce BMI in young children.
In the intervention group, family members could only turn on the television using their individually selected 4-digit code. In this situation, the minutes of use will only be recorded for the individual whose code switched on the television, which results in an underestimation of the actual minutes of television viewed by other family members, as children often watch television with their parents or siblings. In the present study, this may indicate that the reported effect on BMI is in fact an underestimation or that it is mediated through something other than television viewing. We would be interested to know if television viewing with family members was recorded by the investigators and if this had any influence on the results. Overall, this study by Epstein and colleagues illuminates the effect of reducing television viewing and computer use on BMI in young children.
Correspondence: Dr Krul, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, the Netherlands (m.krul@erasmusmc.nl).
Author Contributions:Study concept and design: Krul and van Leeuwen. Drafting of the manuscript: Krul and van Leeuwen. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: Krul and van Leeuwen. Administrative, technical, and material support: Krul and van Leeuwen. Study supervision: van Leeuwen.
Financial Disclosure: None reported.
Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature
Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal
Instructions
Comments are moderated and will appear on the site at the discretion of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine editors. Comments should not exceed 500 words of text and 10 references.
Do not submit personal medical questions or information that could identify a specific patient, questions about a particular case, or general inquiries to an author. Only content that has not been published, posted, or submitted elsewhere should be submitted. By submitting this Comment, you and any coauthors transfer copyright to the journal if your Comment is posted.
* = Required Field
Disclosure of Any Conflicts of Interest* Indicate all relevant conflicts of interest of each author below, including all relevant financial interests, activities, and relationships within the past 3 years including, but not limited to, employment, affiliation, grants or funding, consultancies, honoraria or payment, speakers’ bureaus, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, royalties, donation of medical equipment, or patents planned, pending, or issued. If all authors have none, check "No potential conflicts or relevant financial interests" in the box below. Please also indicate any funding received in support of this work. The information will be posted with your response.
Register and get free email Table of Contents alerts, saved searches, PowerPoint downloads, CME quizzes, and more
Subscribe for full-text access to content from 1998 forward and a host of useful features
Activate your current subscription (AMA members and current subscribers)
Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.
Download citation file:
Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.
and access these and other features:
Register Now
Enter your username and email address. We'll send you a reminder to the email address on record.
Athens and Shibboleth are access management services that provide single sign-on to protected resources. They replace the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session. It operates independently of a user's location or IP address. If your institution uses Athens or Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.