Excess weight and higher blood pressure in childhood are considered risk factors for heart disease later in life.
"Our hypothesis is that when kids are watching TV, they're going to be accessing commercials that are more likely to be food related," says Dr. Elizabeth Jackson, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, who led the study.
Jackson and her colleagues checked the health of 1,003 middle-schoolers and asked them about their snacking habits. The research was presented at the American College of Cardiology's Scientific Session in Washington, D.C.
Though the big consumers of TV, computer time and games all said they ate more junk food than the low-screen-time kids, the TV-watchers were most adept at eating chips and french fries.
Perhaps that because it's hard to snack on chips while your hands are busy tapping away on a keyboard or a game controller, Jackson tells Shots.
While doctors have known for a while that increasing screen time and media use also increases kids' chances of being obese, they don't usually differentiate between various types of media. Jackson says that this research was a first step in trying to tease out the differences.
But even if some types of media use are better than others, Jackson says that her research and other studies show spending less time sitting in front of any sort of screen is good for youngsters.
"As a mom and a doctor I would say it's important to limit the screen time for kids," she says. Thus teachers, parents and communities need to make sure kids spend at least a little bit of time running around and entertaining themselves the old-fashioned way.
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