Abstract
Objective
To examine associations between parental limits on TV viewing and child health behaviors.
Methods
We surveyed 816 parents of children 6 to 12 years of age who were participating in
a primary care–based obesity intervention. The main exposures were parental limits
placed on child TV viewing time and TV content. Outcomes included screen-related behaviors,
sleep habits, eating routines, and physical activity. We performed bivariate and multivariable
analyses to examine independent associations of parental TV viewing rules with our
outcomes.
Results
In multivariable analyses adjusted for child age, sex, race/ethnicity; parental education
and US-born status; income and primary language, children whose parents set limits
on TV time were less likely to have a TV in their bedroom (odds ratio [OR] 0.45; 95%
confidence interval [CI] 0.31, 0.64) or to fall asleep while watching TV (OR 0.47;
95% CI 0.34, 0.67). Children with parental limits spent fewer weekday hours watching
TV (−0.38 hours/day; 95% CI −0.54, −0.21), playing video or computer games (−0.15
hours/day; 95% CI −0.25, −0.04), and using the Internet (−0.08 hours/day; 95% CI −0.15,
−0.006). In addition, children with limits on TV time were less likely to eat breakfast
(OR 0.73; 95% CI 0.53, 0.99) or dinner (OR 0.53; 95% CI 0.39, 0.73) with the TV on,
and they slept longer during weeknights: 0.21 hours/day (95% CI 0.05, 0.36). Moreover,
children whose parents set rules on TV programming content were also less likely to
have a TV in their bedroom (OR 0.37; 95% CI 0.18, 0.79).
Conclusions
The relationship between parental limits on TV viewing and obesogenic child behaviors
deserves further investigation.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 08, 2014
Accepted:
August 24,
2014
Received:
May 18,
2014
Footnotes
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Academic Pediatric Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
