Towhatextentistelevisionviewingasignificantfactorinchildobesity

陈奕

For many years，the public discussion about the relationship between television viewing and child obesity is not new. The majority of people seems to concur that television viewing will exert a dramatically negative implication on child obesity. However，some scholars，in recent years，have started to notice a fact that television viewing cannot be a pure procedure of accepting information passively，and watching television is always accompanied and interacted with other activities. Therefore，it seems not reasonable to overestimate its negative influence for children weight. This essay will argue that the negative effects of television viewing on child obesity is limited and controllable，and diverse variables can intervene and even reduce the negative impact of the television viewing on childrens obesity，including parental intervention，various demographic factors，pre-school childcare，school education and governments regulations and policies.

On one hand，the fact that television entertainment and commercial viewing will result in child obesity is not definite，because they are still likely to contribute to some positive consequences about childrens weight status. In fact，A variety of potentially main mechanisms indeed critically make sense of the paths through which excessive watching television causes child obesity like food advertisements，replacement of other physical activities，the unrealistic expectation for unhealthy food，and eating while watching （Buijzen，2008）.Nevertheless，some television programs also deliver healthy and useful information to children，and even prompt the development of childrens other abilities like reading ability，cognitive ability and social behaviors which can promote the development of critical viewing skill of children and help them absorb the information about healthy diet from the complex messages initially （Christakis，Garrison& Zimmerman，2006）. Vandebosch and Cleemput （2007） also pointed out that the tendency of pursuing a slim figure can be partly explained by the images of thin actresses in the soap operas.

On the other hand，it seems not reasonable to separate the television viewing from environment of family，society and even media. Various factors in these environments can interact and influence television viewing activity and then act on child obesity indirectly（Gunter&Furnham，1995）. At this point，the four significant respects，parents，demographic factors，education and government，will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

Firstly，parents can effectively try to control the possibility and extent of child obesity brought by television viewing，if they select the content and restrict the time of television viewing for children，strengthen the communication with them and set a good example for them.. Ochsenhirt and Kim （2008） concluded that communication and accompany with children are likely to increase the opportunities and frequency of the introduction of healthy diet ，the nutrition education and the critical viewing cultivation. Meanwhile，Silk & Eneli （2010） claimed that good television viewing behavior of parents means the time of other leisure activities was likely to be improved and the possibility of children obesity tended to decrease.

Secondly，some demographic factors are capable of impairing the harmful influence of television viewing on childrens weight status，like families economical standards and parents education background. Jordan （2007） informed that families economical standards （SMS） seems to be one of the most important demographic factors，because it will affect families affordability to entertainment. It seems easy to understand that if a family cannot afford the expenditure on various entertainments，the most possible method to relax will be watching television. Meanwhile，A long term survey within one hundred and ninety-six American families exhibits that the higher maternal academic backgrounds are associated with lower children television viewing （Jordan，2007）.

Apart from the parental intervention and demographic factors，the relationship between television viewing and obesity of children are possibly weaken by pre-school childcare and school education. It is generally acknowledged that the majority of childrens daily life is occupied by school time，and schools are highly considerable guiders for children，because they are most important and credible knowledge resources. The obvious effects of school intervention can be illustrated by a study. Christakis，Garrion and Zimmerman （2006） conducted a national survey in which the impact of television viewing on the pre-school children in childcare centre and in home-based care was compared. The result of the study reveals that the time in front of screen of television of the children under child care is only 0.36 hours per day，however，the time for children under the parental care reach to 1.39 hour per day，and more than 30% television programs exposed to them belong to “noneducational” programs which are likely to contain more negative information associated to child obesity.

Finally，a series of government regulations and policies aimed at supervising and managing content of television are also worth paying attention to. At least eighty-five percent of nations in the world to establish some regulations and policies aimed at media （Jordan，2007）. The effective approaches of the government to protect children from obesity brought by watching television can be thoroughly divided into three sections. The first one is marketing restriction which means filtering and eliminating of the unhealthy foods advertisements，like taxing and censorship （Mathew，2007）. Another one is Media literacy Programs which is designed to specifically cultivate and improve the critical viewing skill in whole scope of society and counterbalance the effects of food marketing （Buckingham，2009）. Last but not least，reinforcement of the public announcement is an effective action，like health campaigns and nutrition labeling.

To conclusion，childrens television viewing is not a passive exposure to screen，and the negative effects of television viewing on childrens weight status appears not so strong and definite. Television viewing is always involved in media environment，family environment and social environment. The appropriate application of medium-self，parents and government will contribute to prevent children from suffering obesity and over-weight resulted by television viewing. This essay partly illustrates the applications of some interventions and provides some practical views for future study on prevention of child obesity related to television viewing.

References：

[1]Acevedo- Polakovich，I.D.， Lorch，E.P.，Milich，R.& Ashby，R.D.（2006）.Disentangling the Relation Between Television Viewing and Cognitive Processes in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Comparison Children.（Reprinted） Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med，160（9），355-360.

[2]Anderson，D.R.& Hanson，K.G.（2009）.Children，Media，and Methodology.American Behaviour Scientist，52（8），1204-1219.

[3]Anderson，D.R.，Field，D.E.，Collins，P.A.，Lorch，E.P.& Nathan，J.G.（1985），Estimates of Young Children's Time with Television：A Methodological Comparison of Parent Reports with Time-Lapse Video Home Observation.Children Development，56（6），1345-1357.

[4]Andrews，K.R.，Silk，S.K.& Eneli，I.U.（2010）.Parents as health promoters：a theory of planned behavior perspective on the prevention of childhood obesity.Journal of Health Communication，15（1），95-107.

[5]Buckingham，D.（2009）.Beyond the competent consumer：the role of media literacy in the making of regulatory policy on children and food advertising in the UK.International Journal of Cultural Policy，15（2），217-230.

[6]Buijzen，M.，Bomhof，E.，& Schuurman，J.（2008）.A test of three alternative hypotheses explaining the link between childrens television viewing and weigh status.Journal of Children and Media，2（1），67-74.

[7]Christakis，D.A.& Zimmerman，F.J.（2009）.Young children and media limitations of current knowledge and future directions for research.American Behavioral Scientist，56（18），1177-1185.

[8]Christakis，D.A.，Garrison，M.M.& Zimmerman，F.J.（2006）.Television viewing in child care programs：a national survey.Communication Reports，19（2），111-120.

[9]David，B.（2009）.Beyond the competent consumer：the role of media literacy in the making regulatory policy on children and food advertising in the UK.International Journal of Cultural Policy，15（2），217-230.

[10]Diener，M.，Pierroutsakos，S.L.，Troseth，G.L.& Roberts，A.（2008），Video Versus Reality：Infants Attention and Affective Responses to Video and Live Presentations.Media Psychology，11（4），418-441.

作者信息：陳奕，女（1987/10/01），汉族，云南昆明人，研究生，助教，研究方向：媒体与传播。