Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Study Shows TV Makes Kids Fat, Computers Don't

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-pass-the-cheetos dept.

Xemu writes "Computers don't make children fat, but watching TV for the same length of time does. This is shown by a recent Swedish study of all school children in Lund's county conducted by RN Pernilla Garmy. The results were clear: The child's obesity was directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room, but placing a computer in the room had no effect at all. One theory is that it's common to have a snack in front of the TV, while a computer requires a more active user, for example when chatting or playing games."

5 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Re:90% of the calories from sugar and fat.. by Pojut · · Score: 2, Informative

    Taken from the website http://www.nutellausa.com/ingredients.htm : ingredients: sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (from milk), soy lecithin: an emulsifier, vanillin: an artificial flavor.

    And the nutrition label:

    http://www.nutellausa.com/nutrition-facts.htm

    It's about on par with Jif.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
  2. Re:"Active"? by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 2, Informative

    If nothing else - it slows down your eating.

    Eating too fast is one of top reasons Obesity occurs. Your stomach takes a while to send the "I'm full" signal to your brain. Something like 8 minutes, I think. So when you slam down a bunch of food and then think "I'm full" you end up over-eating, more than your stomach can handle. So your body turns it to fat.

  3. Re:IS there a link to the study? by actionbastard · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is no 'study'. These 'results' are from a survey of primary school children conducted in one municipality by a school nurse. No scientists or researchers were involved. There is no empirical data at all. No experiments were conducted. More than likely the 'study' consists of anecdotal evidence such as; TV in room, check...fat child, check...TV caused fat child.

    --
    Sig this!
  4. Suggestion and theory of fat accumulation key by cbarcus · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is some scientific disagreement over the nature of fat accumulation (consider Gary Taubes landmark book Good Calories, Bad Calories), and I would think that this plays an important role in how the culture views the qualities of various foods. Furthermore, as has been mentioned in other posts, TV ads are designed to affect those who watch them. It is non-trivial to resist the sophisticated suggestions (see Boris Sidis' The Psychology of Suggestion 1898) that vulnerable people encounter in broadcast media.

  5. Re:who can eat when by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Is that what you kids are calling it these days? In my day, we did it with one hand, and we liked it!