Australian researchers have found that parental support is the key to helping overweight children move away from the TV and computer screen, and towards sports and healthier eating habits, according to a study published in the American College of Sports Medicine journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Researchers tested three intervention strategies – a physical activity skills development program, a dietary modification program, and a combination of the two – on 165 overweight Australian children, ages 5 to 9.
By helping their kids modify behaviour and replace sedentary activity with physical activity and healthier diets, parents were able to help their children cut back on daily TV and computer screen time by an average of 55 minutes after six months, and 39 minutes after one year.
Children in the dietary modification program initially reduced their screen time by 65 minutes per day, but gained it all back by the end of the year. Researchers suggest that one explanation is the lack of targeted parental support related to screen time.
"In the physical activity skill development program (which was also included in the combination group), we targeted screen behaviours directly through a single behaviour-change session with parents and follow-up telephone calls during the six month program," said Dylan Cliff, Ph.D., the lead author. "The findings suggest that parental support could be the missing piece to help overweight children change their screen time behaviours."
The study concludes that the most durable and effective TV-watching intervention is physical activity skills development, and that parental support has a major influence on the child’s behaviour.