Does Eating Affect Preschool Children's Intake Summary
Does Eating During Television Viewing Affect Preschool Children Intake?
Most children love to play, sleep, eat, and watch television. Even as adults, many people dine with a TV dinner, or choose to eat and watch, versus eat and talk. In the article, “Does Eating during Television Viewing Affect Preschool Children’s Intake,” by Lori A. Francis and Leann L. Birch, some very interesting information related to preschool children and eating habits associated with watching television is explained. The article describes how the study was based on 3-5 year old preschool children attending a full-day care in PA. Of the 40 children in two classrooms, only 24 children were given consent to participate in this study. During a two day period, the
children were monitored during lunch and snack time, with and without TV, to compare and contrast meal intake results, related to watching television. The experiment menus consisted of: pizza, carrots, applesauce, and 2% milk. For snack, children had a choice between crackers or dried banana chips. When the children were eating, the observers watched their behavior through headphones to listen to the recording and to watch the TV recorder to see when the child was looking at the TV at 30-second intervals. Children were more engaged with the TV, rather than their meals. In the article, mothers state that children watch an average of 1.5 hours of TV daily, and that 33% of children ate meals or snacks while watching TV. In conclusion, this study concluded that TV can either increase or decrease a preschool child’s food intake. Through this study, we can tell that children ate significantly less at snack and lunch time while watching TV. We can infer that when there is no TV children become bored, thus they turn to their meals. Even though we are limited to our studies with a small sample of children, the result of the preschool-age children helps us understand that TV viewing can reduce energy intake during meals and snacks for some children.
Most children love to play, sleep, eat, and watch television. Even as adults, many people dine with a TV dinner, or choose to eat and watch, versus eat and talk. In the article, “Does Eating during Television Viewing Affect Preschool Children’s Intake,” by Lori A. Francis and Leann L. Birch, some very interesting information related to preschool children and eating habits associated with watching television is explained. The article describes how the study was based on 3-5 year old preschool children attending a full-day care in PA. Of the 40 children in two classrooms, only 24 children were given consent to participate in this study. During a two day period, the
children were monitored during lunch and snack time, with and without TV, to compare and contrast meal intake results, related to watching television. The experiment menus consisted of: pizza, carrots, applesauce, and 2% milk. For snack, children had a choice between crackers or dried banana chips. When the children were eating, the observers watched their behavior through headphones to listen to the recording and to watch the TV recorder to see when the child was looking at the TV at 30-second intervals. Children were more engaged with the TV, rather than their meals. In the article, mothers state that children watch an average of 1.5 hours of TV daily, and that 33% of children ate meals or snacks while watching TV. In conclusion, this study concluded that TV can either increase or decrease a preschool child’s food intake. Through this study, we can tell that children ate significantly less at snack and lunch time while watching TV. We can infer that when there is no TV children become bored, thus they turn to their meals. Even though we are limited to our studies with a small sample of children, the result of the preschool-age children helps us understand that TV viewing can reduce energy intake during meals and snacks for some children.