Parents Can Fight Obesity by Weaning Preschoolers from TV

Newswise — Families can reduce their television viewing time, and thus reduce their risks of obesity, with the help of television reduction messages delivered by large public health programs. According to a paper in the current issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion, Dr. Donna Johnson, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Washington, and colleagues were able to demonstrate an increase in the number of study participants who reported fewer hours of television viewing over the course of the study.

Study participants were enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a long-established federal program that provides food, nutrition counseling and health referrals for low-income women and their young children. Before the television reduction program began, a survey of the families in the WIC program showed that 64 percent reported that their children watched television 2 hours each day or less. Six months into the study, the figure rose to 70 percent.

Johnson and her colleagues asked WIC clients and staff in the Washington State WIC program about their television viewing habits before and after a viewing reduction program was introduced as part of a larger program. The overall aim was to encourage WIC staff and clients to eat more family meals and get more exercise.