\nPeople who spend more time watching TV as children are more likely to experience certain health complications, a new study finds.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nIt turns out the amount of television you watch as a kid could follow you into your middle age, no matter how your TV habits have changed over the years.\n<\/p>\n \nNew research out of New Zealand found that, at age 45, people who spent more time watching TV as kids and teenagers had higher blood pressure, higher rates of obesity, and used oxygen less efficiently during exercise than those that watched fewer hours of TV early on in life.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cHow parents and society raise children affects their health for their entire lives,\u201d said Thomas Robinson, MD, MPH, co-director of the Stanford Screenomics Lab at Stanford University, who was not involved in the new research.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIf we raise children in an unhealthy environment, with lots of screen time, unhealthy food, and lack of physical activity, we end up with a lot more\u2014and more expensive\u2014health problems in the future,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n Getty Images \/ Michael Blann<\/p>\n <\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n \nThe research team used data from nearly 900 people born in Dunedin, a city on New Zealand\u2019s South Island, who were born in 1972 or 1973. Their parents had participated in The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study and reported their children\u2019s weekday TV time (or the children self-reported) at ages 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 32 years old.\n<\/p>\n \nFor the new research, the authors followed up with participants at the age of 45.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \nRegardless of each participant\u2019s sex, body mass index (BMI) at age 5, and family economic status, those who watched more hours of TV as children had poorer metabolic health in adulthood.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nThe researchers found that childhood TV habits were more strongly correlated with adult health than the amount of time participants spent watching TV in adulthood.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nAlthough the study does not prove a direct cause-and-effect, there are several ways screen time may cause habits that set a person up for health issues in adulthood, said the study\u2019s lead author, Bob Hancox, MD, head of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine in the University of Otago\u2019s Dunedin School of Medicine in New Zealand.\n<\/p>\n \nThe first is that watching TV in childhood likely displaces opportunities to get exercise.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cThis does not necessarily need to be sport or other recognized physical activities,\u201d Hancox told Health<\/em>. \u201cAlmost any waking activity uses more energy than watching TV.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nScreen time is also well-documented to disrupt sleep, which has a negative effect on physical health. Additionally, recent studies have suggested that not getting enough sleep can actually cancel out some of the benefits gained from exercise.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nBut, \u201cMost of the evidence about the impacts of screen time on obesity and chronic disease risk suggest that its effects on eating matter the most,\u201d Robinson, who is also a professor of medicine at Stanford University, told Health<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n \nPeople tend to eat more when distracted by watching TV, meaning they regularly consume more calories, and commercials for junk food often influence what they choose to eat.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nAccording to Robinson, childhood behaviors may even alter the way a person\u2019s genes are expressed, called epigenetic changes.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cChildhood behaviors may alter a child\u2019s physiology in a way that has long-lasting effects, causing early damage to the body that accelerates future problems,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nThe good news is, not all damage caused by poor childhood habits is irreversible.\n<\/p>\n \nRobinson explained that even if a person has developed metabolic syndrome\u2014a group of conditions that include obesity and high blood pressure\u2014incorporating more activity into their life and being mindful of eating habits can reverse the conditions.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd it doesn\u2019t take much to incorporate small amounts of activity into a busy schedule. Even just a walk around the block after a meal can help the body better regulate glucose and insulin, which in turn can help manage (or starve-off) diabetes.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n What Is a 'Dopamine Detox'? How Taking a Break From Media Could Improve Your Mental Health<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span> <\/p>\n \nThe original data for this study was collected starting in the 1970s, long before tablets, smartphones, and laptops significantly increased the amount of time kids spend in front of screens.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \nNow, the collected data would look a little different.\n<\/p>\n \nA 2019 report found that teenagers in the United States\u2014Gen Z, born after 1996\u2014spent an average of 7 hours a day on screens, not counting the amount of time they spent on screens for school work.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nAnother 2019 study found that kids under 3 years old spent more than twice as much time in front of screens as kids did in 1997.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nA study published in 2023 found that screen time among children increased by nearly two hours in the first part of the pandemic and remained elevated by one hour during the second part of the pandemic, when lockdowns were lifted and most kids returned to school and extracurricular activities.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \nAlthough not much data exists on how current screen habits affect kids into adulthood, research does show that sedentary behavior (like sitting in front of a computer) has lasting effects throughout a person\u2019s lifetime.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWe have created a toxic world for our children and made life very difficult for parents to provide the most healthful environments possible,\u201d Robinson said.\n<\/p>\n \nIt\u2019s unclear how different types of screen time may have different effects. Robinson believes that future research should focus on solution-oriented interventions.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cFor a long time we have had sufficient evidence to justify action,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n \nResearch-based interventions could provide caregivers, schools, communities, and policymakers with opportunities to intervene early to protect the health of future generations of adults, starting in childhood.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt is never too late to adopt more healthful behaviors but it is also never too early,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is best to start early in children and continue throughout the entire lifespan.\u201d\n<\/p>\n What To Do When Your Favorite TV Shows Trigger Anxiety<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New research linked how much TV people viewed as children to certain health complications in middle age. It didn\u2019t matter how much TV the participants consumed as adults; the correlation was strictly linked back to childhood habits. Experts note that children today are consuming even more screen time than children in the study; intervention in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1187,410],"tags":[1188,116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17321"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kid](\"https:\/\/www.health.com\/thmb\/uItrqT-z3rJ_ddMZ2UbgsHycjVw=\/1500x0\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()\/GettyImages-84183398-49a451e11d544abb80efe595057f9892.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Lifelong Habits (And Health) Start In Childhood <\/span> <\/h2>\n
What This Means for Today\u2019s Kids <\/span> <\/h2>\n