According to Dr Aric Sigman, Children born today will spend more time watching television than they do at school, by the age of 7. Scarily, it is estimated that an average of five televisions are in every home and because of such, children are becoming glued to the television, and in turn to the couch they sit on to watch the television.
Dr Sigman says limiting the amount of time children spend watching television could significantly improve your child’s health and well being.
With so many ‘sit down’ activities being readily available, such as playing on computers and watching televisions, our kids are suffering. Nowadays, children are not outside playing, running off some energy and getting fit. Dr Sigman also mentions that social relationships are affected by such little interaction.
Dr Sigman reckons parents use these means as an “electronic babysitter” to keep the children occupied while they go about their everyday routines and tasks.
Dr sigman says;-
”Reducing total daily screen time for children, and delaying the age at which they start, could provide significant advantages for their health and wellbeing,”
He then goes onto say;-
”While many questions remain regarding the precise nature of the association between screen time and adverse outcomes, the advice from a growing number of both researchers and other medical associations and government health departments elsewhere is becoming unequivocal: reduce screen time.”
He concluded: ”As health risks are reported to occur beyond exposure of two hours of screen time per day, although the average child is exposed to three times this amount, a robust initiative to encourage a reduction in daily recreational screen time could lead to significant improvements in child health and development.
”Britain and European medical establishments should consider screen time as a separate entity from sedentary behaviour, and offer an advisory on the average number of hours per day young children, in particular, are viewing screen media, and the age at which they start.”
What do you think of Dr Sigman’s suggestions?
