American doctors have carried out an interesting experiment in obese children and above all very heavy television consumers. A single treatment: reduce the time spent in front of screens. The results are spectacular in the medium term.
It is a very serious study which lasted 2 years. In the United States, doctors looked at seventy children aged four to seven who were already obese, which is not uncommon in this country, as was their bad habit of sitting for hours in front of a television screen. or video games. These charming toddlers did not take a back seat, since they spent at least 40 hours a week in front of their screens.
We can think that a good number of French children should not be far from that in France! In fact the figure is 22 hours a week; less, but just as worrying.
The study consisted in depriving them of TV and games, by asking parents to put on the screens, a surveillance device with an electronic access code. And as always in studies, by constituting two groups. One in which children could continue to sit for hours in front of the screens; the other with a gradual decrease in consumption. All controlled by these electronic boxes.
After two years, As you might expect, TV rhymes with lack of physical exercise, screen-deprived children started playing again… outside! They saw their body mass index, that is to say their indicator of obesity, drop considerably.
From almost 40 hours on average, to about 10 per week, the time spent inactive in front of a screen. The others, those who continued to watch without constraint; continued to grow.
It’s not just closing your eyes that you lose weight …
This weight loss was linked to additional physical activity, but not only. They naturally ate less. We know that advertising – often for treats for children – makes you hungry and especially desynchronizes the desire to eat. To put it simply, they snack all day long and are no longer hungry at the table for balanced meals.
What is the advice of the doctors? Not to be stupid censors but to give the child the free choice of a limited time of television. One can imagine a pact with the children: “Go for example for 10 hours a week; when you want, but no more! “.
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