TV not great for toddlers!

The BBC a while back broadcast the results of a study of 1300 young children that looked at the impact of watching television. The researchers conclusion were alarming: 'The more TV a toddler watches, the higher the likelihood they will do badly at school and have poor health at the age of 10'.

I had been meaning to share it in this blog - the Open Eye Campaign re early years education mention of it in their latest email news prompted me to write something. The study of 1,300 children by Michigan and Montreal universities found negative effects on older children rose with every hour of toddler TV. Performance at school was worse, while consumption of junk foods was higher. I've long had a suspicion that TV is not good for children - and clearly there are other factors involved....

British Psychological Society Fellow Dr Aric Sigman, who has carried out his own research, which also highlighted concerns over young children watching too much TV, said: "My recommendation to the government five years ago, and even as recently as three years ago, that they merely issue general guidelines on the amount of TV that children watch and the age at which they start was considered radical and controversial. Yet a growing body of evidence is now causing governments and health authorities elsewhere to do just that, and we need to as well. This is yet another study reinforcing the need for our society to finally accept that quite aside from good or bad parenting, children's daily screen time is a major independent health issue."

See more re the study here.