MedWire News: Children who spend a lot of time watching television are not only at increased risk of obesity, but also hypertension, study findings show.

The findings highlight the need to limit negative health outcomes associated with TV viewing, note Dr Jeffrey Schwimmer, from University of California in San Diego, USA, and colleagues.

“For example, by removing the TV from the child’s bedroom and forbidding TV watching while eating,” they say.

The researchers evaluated the risk for hypertension among 546 obese children aged 14 to 17 years in accordance with how many hours of TV they watched.

They found that children who watched a lot of TV were more severely obese than those who watched less than 2 hours of TV a day.

Dr Schwimmer and team also report that obese children who watched 2 to 4 hours of TV a day were more then twice as likely to have hypertension as children who watched up to 2 hours of TV a day. For children watching more than 4 hours of TV a day, the risk of hypertension was more than three times as great.

“The current study illustrates the need for considerable physician and family involvement to decrease TV time among obese children,” write the researchers in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children watch less than 2 hours of TV per day, but reports that only half (51%) of paediatricians make this recommendation to patients.”

Dr Schwimmer and co-workers conclude: “TV viewing is an attractive target for intervention, particularly among obese children with hypertension.”