Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Changes in obesity, sedentary behaviours and Perth chidren's television viewing from 1960 to 2003

Changes in obesity, sedentary behaviours and Perth chidren's television viewing from 1960 to 2003 Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer Control, Curtin University, Western Australia As with most of the developed world, there is clear evidence that Australian children are getting fatter. Measures of subcutaneous skinfold thickness suggest a steady linear increase in the fatness of Australian children since the mid 1970s.1,2 According to BMI measurements, the proportion of Australian children who were overweight increased by between 60-70% and the proportion of obese children more than tripled between 1985 and 1995.1,3 Various current estimates suggest that between 2327% of Australian children are currently overweight, including 6-9% who are obese.4-7 As bodyweight is regulated by numerous physiological mechanisms that maintain balance between energy intake and ener gy e xpenditure, obesity is considered a multifactorial condition with genetic and environmental predictors. Genetic factors are undoubtedly important predictors of childhood obesity, yet the rapid rise in the propor tion of children in the total population who have become obese in the past 20 years is not satisfactorily explained by genetics alone; environmental f actors that affect energy intake and energy expenditure are likely to have played a more significant role. Much debate surrounds the contribution of diet and physical inactivity to the rapid rise in childhood obesity. One of the most common assumptions used in the research literature is that the rise in childhood obesity has come about due to ‘increased’ sedentary use of modern media such as television and computers.812 While there is clear evidence that the amount of time spent watching television is positively related to BMI, the direction of this relationship remains equivocal.10,12-17 The contention that television viewing has contributed to the childhood obesity epidemic clearly presumes that the amount of sedentary time children spend watching television has increased since the medium was first introduced around half a centur y ago. To test this hypothesis, I examined a 1959-60 study of children’ s out-of-school activities conducted in Perth, Western Australia18 that sampled an equal number of male and female school students Table 1: Daily amount of time children spent on modern media in 1960 and 2003. Leisure activity Television/videos Computers/ electronic games Total aged 13-14 y ears from a representative cross-section of government and non-government schools. In 1959, a sample of 224 children completed a one-week, out-of-school activity diary before the introduction of television and one year later a second sample of 203 children completed the same activity diary, of which just under half (n=86) reported having televisions in their homes. The television viewing behaviours of these children are compared in Table 1 to 12-14 year-old children’s leisure activities in 2003 as suggested by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.19 From this comparison it is evident that the amount of sedentary time Perth children spend on modern media activities has changed little, if at all, in the inter vening 43 years. Interestingly, ‘televiewing’ by children in 1960 appears to have largely replaced other sedentary behaviours in 1959. For example, listening to radio programs dropped from seven hours and 42 minutes per week in 1959 to only 54 minutes in 1960, and watching ‘pictures’ at the cinema dropped from three hours per week to only 48 minutes per week. This result suggests that children’s sedentary behaviours associated with the use of modern media is a poor explanation for increased childhood obesity in the past several decades. It also complements other research that suggests increased consumption of energy-dense foods, not physical inactivity, is chiefly responsible for the rapid increases observed in childhood obesity in the past 20 years.20 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health Wiley

Changes in obesity, sedentary behaviours and Perth chidren's television viewing from 1960 to 2003

Download PDF
2 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/changes-in-obesity-sedentary-behaviours-and-perth-chidren-s-television-0kT0jh7fGv

References (22)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
1326-0200
eISSN
1753-6405
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-842X.2005.tb00072.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer Control, Curtin University, Western Australia As with most of the developed world, there is clear evidence that Australian children are getting fatter. Measures of subcutaneous skinfold thickness suggest a steady linear increase in the fatness of Australian children since the mid 1970s.1,2 According to BMI measurements, the proportion of Australian children who were overweight increased by between 60-70% and the proportion of obese children more than tripled between 1985 and 1995.1,3 Various current estimates suggest that between 2327% of Australian children are currently overweight, including 6-9% who are obese.4-7 As bodyweight is regulated by numerous physiological mechanisms that maintain balance between energy intake and ener gy e xpenditure, obesity is considered a multifactorial condition with genetic and environmental predictors. Genetic factors are undoubtedly important predictors of childhood obesity, yet the rapid rise in the propor tion of children in the total population who have become obese in the past 20 years is not satisfactorily explained by genetics alone; environmental f actors that affect energy intake and energy expenditure are likely to have played a more significant role. Much debate surrounds the contribution of diet and physical inactivity to the rapid rise in childhood obesity. One of the most common assumptions used in the research literature is that the rise in childhood obesity has come about due to ‘increased’ sedentary use of modern media such as television and computers.812 While there is clear evidence that the amount of time spent watching television is positively related to BMI, the direction of this relationship remains equivocal.10,12-17 The contention that television viewing has contributed to the childhood obesity epidemic clearly presumes that the amount of sedentary time children spend watching television has increased since the medium was first introduced around half a centur y ago. To test this hypothesis, I examined a 1959-60 study of children’ s out-of-school activities conducted in Perth, Western Australia18 that sampled an equal number of male and female school students Table 1: Daily amount of time children spent on modern media in 1960 and 2003. Leisure activity Television/videos Computers/ electronic games Total aged 13-14 y ears from a representative cross-section of government and non-government schools. In 1959, a sample of 224 children completed a one-week, out-of-school activity diary before the introduction of television and one year later a second sample of 203 children completed the same activity diary, of which just under half (n=86) reported having televisions in their homes. The television viewing behaviours of these children are compared in Table 1 to 12-14 year-old children’s leisure activities in 2003 as suggested by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.19 From this comparison it is evident that the amount of sedentary time Perth children spend on modern media activities has changed little, if at all, in the inter vening 43 years. Interestingly, ‘televiewing’ by children in 1960 appears to have largely replaced other sedentary behaviours in 1959. For example, listening to radio programs dropped from seven hours and 42 minutes per week in 1959 to only 54 minutes in 1960, and watching ‘pictures’ at the cinema dropped from three hours per week to only 48 minutes per week. This result suggests that children’s sedentary behaviours associated with the use of modern media is a poor explanation for increased childhood obesity in the past several decades. It also complements other research that suggests increased consumption of energy-dense foods, not physical inactivity, is chiefly responsible for the rapid increases observed in childhood obesity in the past 20 years.20

Journal

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health – Wiley

Published: Apr 1, 2005

There are no references for this article.