Watching television disrupts children's' normal response to food they will eat more while they're sitting in front of the tube, whether or not they're really hungry.
"These data, combined with those from other studies, support recommendations to reduce television watching and restrict eating while watching television as part of a healthy lifestyle," Dr. Jennifer L. Temple and colleagues from the University at Buffalo, New York, conclude.
Given that kids tend to eat high-calorie foods when watching television, snacks in front of the tube have the potential to "profoundly" affect how many calories children consume, even if the time they spend snacking is short, the researchers note.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Watching television disrupts children's' normal response to food -- they will eat more while they're sitting in front of the tube, whether or not they're really hungry.
"These data, combined with those from other studies, support recommendations to reduce television watching and restrict eating while watching television as part of a healthy lifestyle," Dr. Jennifer L. Temple and colleagues from the University at Buffalo, New York, conclude.
Temple and her team looked at how television affected "habituation to food cues." Habituation is the phenomenon that occurs when a person repeatedly provided with a food will eventually lose interest and stop eating it once they are full. Providing a new, unfamiliar food can disrupt this process, and a person will start eating again even if they're not hungry. Non-food stimuli may also disrupt habituation if a person's attention is distracted.
In the first experiment, the researchers had 30 normal-weight kids ranging in age from 9 to 12 perform a computer task to earn points to eat food. The task consisted of 10 two-minute time blocks. For the first 7 blocks, kids worked for points to eat half a junior cheeseburger. For the final 3, some children continued to work for pieces of cheeseburger, others worked for French fries, and the third group worked for cheeseburgers while watching television.
While the kids who didn't watch television and were continually offered cheeseburgers as rewards eventually lost interest in the food, the children offered French fries and those who finished the task while watching television started eating again, the researchers found.
Read more of "Watching television disrupts children's' normal response to food" and discuss it on the IHRSA Wellness Report.
About Lifestyle Family Fitness: Lifestyle Family Fitness was founded in Lakeland, Florida in 1982 and currently owns and operates locations in the Florida market, Ohio and now in North Carolina with approximately 180,000 members. The International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) currently ranks Lifestyle as one of the top 25 fastest growing fitness companies in the world. All of the Lifestyle facilities include a variety of fitness equipment, group fitness classes, personal training, childcare and related amenities that help “Bring Your Body To Life
®.” Investment partners include Quantum Capital Partners, Inc., Ballast Point Ventures and The Burton Partnership. Lifestyle’s corporate headquarters is located at 140 Fountain Parkway, Suite 410, St. Petersburg, Florida 33716. To learn more about Lifestyle, please call (727) 456-3100 ext. 4337 or visit
www.lff.com.