Obese kids spend too much time in front of a screen

Stuff co.nz 7 February 2017
Family First Comment: Wow! Who would have thought it??! (sarcasm)
Perhaps we should ban technology rather than sugar.
Kiwi kids with weight issues spend more than double the recommended time in front of a screen, new research shows.
The recommended television or other screen time is less than two hours per day outside of school hours, with no screen time for children under the age of two, Taranaki paediatrician and co-author of the study, Dr Yvonne Anderson, said.
The average screen time, outside of school, for the 239 Taranaki children in the study was more than 2.5 hours per day and more than a third were glued to a screen for more than three hours a day.
“We already knew from a past study that almost half of the children have a television or some form of device in their bedrooms, and these children reported having more difficulty getting to sleep than those without devices in the bedroom,” Anderson said.
Taranaki has one of the highest rates of child obesity in the country.
Nationally, an estimated 85,000 children aged 2-14 years are obese, and about 4,500 in Taranaki, according to the New Zealand Health Survey.
The children in the study were part of the community-based 12-month intervention programme called Whanau Pakari. The youngsters, aged 4-16, had a Body Mass Index (BMI) in the clinically overweight or obese range, and many had weight-related health problems.
The programme, which is unique to Taranaki, has been running since 2012 and research is being undertaken to assess the impact of the programme and paint a picture of what is happening in the children’s lives.
READ MORE: http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/89139722/obese-kids-spend-too-much-time-in-front-of-a-screen