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January 21, 2009 Media Consumption & Unhealthy Behaviors |
Because this story is so important, we are covering it from a
different aspect. This information is directly from the NIH website.
Study Links Media Consumption to Unhealthy Behaviors in
Children Children and adolescents fill 45 hours a week-more than time spent
in school and with family-using media: television, music, movies,
video games, and the Internet. A new study led by the Dr. Ezekiel J.
Emanuel, chair of the Clinical Center's Department of Bioethics, has revealed
such exposure relates to a rise in negative health behaviors.
A
systematic review of 173 cross-sectional and longitudinal
quantitative studies showed a positive relationship between the quantity of
media consumption and, most notably, obesity and tobacco use. An increase
in exposure to such electronic resources correlated with an increase in
drug use, alcohol use, and low academic achievement, too.
"That 80
percent of the studies we would find have this negative association, that is
pretty surprising," Emanuel said.
He joined forces with researchers from
Yale University to produce the report, commissioned by Commonsense Media, a
non-partisan nonprofit formed to shape families' media experience, to better
inform policy and identify existing knowledge gaps. The process reviewed
studies published between 1980 and 2006.
Overall, 80 percent of the
studies concluded the general association between media and undesirable
health behaviors. Of the 73 studies that addressed the link between media and
overweight or obesity, 86 percent showed a statistically significant
relationship. Smoking was found to be increased by media consumption in 88
percent of relevant studies. Links to drug use, alcohol use, low academic
achievement and sexual behavior were weaker, though still alarming. A
correlation between amount of media use and attention deficit disorder with
hyperactivity was the least significant.
The report showed a lack of
research into the effects of more recent technologies-the Internet, cell
phones, social-networking Web sites, and video games. As media continues to
increasingly infiltrate the lives of American children, Emanuel and his
collaborators recommended that less toxic, more family-friendly media options
must be introduced.
Emanuel stressed that regardless of content, media
intake alone can lead to behavioral effects and is incorrectly assumed to be
unavoidable. "We probably have sent somewhat the wrong message-that if you
don't expose your kids to computers they'll be ignoramuses and they won't be
ready for the 21st century jobs," he said. "What you really want are kids who
are creative, and there's no evidence that being exposed to the various
media enhances creativity."
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