Television ruinous to health of children

LFP reports:

France's broadcast authority has banned French channels from marketing TV shows to children under three years of age.

The warning messages on foreign content will read: "Watching television can slow the development of children under three, even when it involves channels aimed specifically at them."

The photo above shows some teddy bears I saw for sale in a store in Hong Kong. What must parents thinking when they buy stuff like that for their kids?

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Television makes you sick

Studies show that up to half of American children have a television in their bedroom. And these television cause harm to their health:

Children with bedroom TVs score lower on school tests and are more likely to have sleep problems. Having a television in the bedroom is strongly associated with being overweight and a higher risk for smoking.

Obviously, kids with their own television sets are not going to be big readers. If it does this to kids, there is no reason to think TV is harmless to adults. Parents would be well advised to lead by example.

This finding was also interesting:

Another October study, published in Pediatrics, showed that kindergartners with bedroom TVs had more sleep problems.

Kindergartners with bedroom TVs? What parent would put a TV in a kindergarntners' room? These studies seem even more an incitement of American parenting than television. Anyway, the paragraph continues:

Those kids were also less “emotionally reactive,” meaning that they weren’t as moody or as bothered by changes in routine. While that sounds like a good thing, the researchers speculated that having a TV in the bedroom dampened the intensity with which a child responded to stimulation.

So basically TV turns your little Tommy into a compliant zombie. Put a TV in Tommy's bedroom and there will be no need for the parents to drug him with Ritalin to treat his hyperactivity (caused by the poor diet of TV-promoted fast food).
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NY Times

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