Overweight Kids And Tv

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Overweight Kids and TV Obesity in children is defined by how much the child exceeds the recommended weight for his or her age, sex, and height. Generally, a child is mildly to somewhat overweight if he or she is up to 20 percent above this recommended weight. More than 20 percent is the beginning of mild obesity. An obese child is defined as more than 30 percent above ideal weight. Such children are likely to suffer health and social problems. It is estimated that an obese child watches an average of four hours and nine minutes of television each day. That is four hours that a child could be bonding with their family or taking action in some physical activity. According to these researchers, many analysis confirms a direct relationship between obesity, television viewing and lack of physical activity. I have noticed that in the U.S. there are a lot of overweight children for many reasons. Children should be encouraged to get up and be active versus sitting around watching so much television and eating. The results of a study on television viewing and body weight in children earlier in the year of 2007, concluded that kids who watched the most TV or ate the fewest meals with their families were at risk of being or becoming overweight (Gabel et al, 2007). The analysis addressed the eating and activity factors associated with the onset of becoming overweight and persistent overweight in 8,000 children from kindergarten to third grade. Researchers identified three groups of children: never overweight, overweight onset and persistent overweight. Children who were never overweight watched approximately 14 hours of television per week (approximately 2 hours per day). Children who were persistently overweight were watching almost 16 hours of television per week (Jessen, 2007). The sampling procedure used was a pivotal study done in 1998 by researchers at John Hopkins
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