If you want your son or daughter to ease up on the amount of time he or she spends glued to the television, you may want to turn off the tube yourself more often.
Findings to be published in the August print edition of the journal Pediatrics revealed that children’s TV viewing habits are impacted heavily by the amount of time parents spend watching TV.
“The best predictor of children’s TV time is their parents’ TV time,” said study author Amy Bleakley, a policy research scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center in Philadelphia. “If Mom and Dad automatically turn on the TV when they have free time, it’s likely that their kids will learn to do the same.”
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, kids under the age of 2 should not be allowed to watch any TV, while children over 2 shouldn’t watch more than two hours of TV daily.
Excessive TV viewing could mean that children are leading mostly sedentary lives, which in turn could contribute to weight gain and obesity.
According to a recent study published in BioMed Central Journal, the number of hours that a child spends in front of the tube could directly correlate to a growth in his or her waistline over time, My Kids Health reported.
Promoting children’s health and wellness
Watching too much TV may not seem like a problem for children, but it may make youngsters more susceptible over time to a range of other health issues, including obesity.
A child who doesn’t have proper nutrition or who is overweight could also be more likely to be impacted by colds, the flu or a chronic pediatric condition related to having a weakened immune system.
Parents who are eager to promote children’s health and wellness should consider reducing the amount of viewing time that youngsters have each week for TV – by limiting the hours a child spends in front of the tube, parents may have an easier time encouraging him or her to get out and exercise.
For those who are sick, parents may struggle with ways to get children to take medicines. One major stumbling block when it comes to getting kids to follow through with necessary treatments is taste – many may resist taking liquid medicine because of how it tastes, which is why making medicine taste better is crucial.
To help with this, parents should speak with their local pharmacists about custom medicine flavoring. Having the option to pick out a favorite flavor for liquid drugs can help children feel more excited about not just taking medicine, but feeling better in the process!
