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ORIGINAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION |
1 From the Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School Of Medicine, Stanford, CA.
2 Supported by grant no. 5-R01 HL54102 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; grant no. 99-00530V-10173 from the California Department of Health Services, Cancer Research Program; and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award (to TNR). 3 Address reprint requests to DM Matheson, Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Hoover Pavilion, Room N229, 211 Quarry Road, Stanford, CA 94305-5705. E-mail: matheson{at}stanford.edu.
| ABSTRACT |
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Objectives: Our objectives were to describe the amounts and types of foods that children consume while watching television, compare those types with the types consumed at other times of the day, and examine the associations between childrens body mass index (BMI) and the amounts and types of foods consumed during television viewing.
Design: Data were collected from 2 samples. The first sample consisted of ethnically diverse third-grade children, and the second consisted predominantly of Latino fifth-grade children. Three nonconsecutive 24-h dietary recalls were collected from each child. For each eating episode reported, children were asked whether they had been watching television. Height and weight were measured by using standard methods and were used to calculate BMI.
Results: On weekdays and weekend days, 1718% and
26% of total daily energy, respectively, were consumed during television viewing in the 2 samples. Although the fat content of the foods consumed during television viewing did not differ significantly from that of the foods consumed with the television off, less soda, fast food, fruit, and vegetables were consumed with the television on. The amount of food consumed during television viewing was not associated with childrens BMI, but in the third-grade sample, the fat content of foods consumed during television viewing was associated with BMI.
Conclusions: A significant proportion of childrens daily energy intake is consumed during television viewing, and the consumption of high-fat foods on weekends may be associated with BMI in younger children.
Key Words: Childhood obesity dietary intake television viewing dietary recalls multiethnic population children
| INTRODUCTION |
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Most previous epidemiologic research investigating the relation between television viewing and dietary intake has relied on separate reports of daily television viewing practices and dietary intake. Data on what children actually eat during television viewing are lacking. Therefore, during 24-h dietary recalls, we collected data on the activities that children participated in while they ate each meal or snack. We used these data to describe the amount and types of foods consumed during television viewing, to examine the association between these types of foods and childrens BMI, and to compare the types of foods that children consumed when the television was on with the types of foods that they consumed when the television was off.
| SUBJECTS AND METHODS |
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Sample 1
The first sample was drawn from children participating in a school-based randomized clinical trial on reducing television viewing. Twelve elementary schools from 2 ethnically diverse elementary school districts in northern California participated in this study. All third-grade children enrolled in the schools in September 1999 were eligible to participate. During telephone interviews, parents were informed of the opportunity to participate in 24-h dietary recalls and physical activity monitoring. If they were interested in having their child participate, they were mailed information, including a consent form, and contacted to schedule an initial interview. All children recruited at baseline (fall 1999) and additional children from the same 12 schools who were recruited into the control group during the spring 2000 data-collection period were included in the sample. This sample is referred to as the third-grade sample.
Sample 2
The second sample was drawn from a cross-sectional study of environmental factors affecting childrens dietary intake that was part of a school-based clinical trial to reduce obesity. Fifth-grade students enrolled in 8 low-income elementary schools in San Jose, CA, participated in this project. The students mothers were contacted at school events and through telephone solicitation. The families of the children enrolled in these schools were primarily Mexican American and low income. Written informed consent was obtained from the children and their mothers during the first interview. This sample is referred to as the fifth-grade sample.
Measures
Dietary intake
Three nonconsecutive 24-h dietary recalls that included 2 weekdays and 1 weekend day were conducted, and the children were the primary respondents. Nine validation studies have provided support for the use of 24-h dietary recalls in children as young as third-grade children (1523), and 24-h dietary recalls are considered the most appropriate method to collect dietary data from diverse cultural groups (24). Registered dietitians collected the recalls by using standard protocols in the Nutrition Data System for Research (NDS-R, versions 4.01 and 4.02) (25). In addition, for each meal or snack, the children were asked whether they participated in any of the following activities while eating: watching television, watching a videotape or movie on a videocassette recorder or video disk, playing video games or playing on a computer, watching a movie at the theatre, doing homework, reading (other than for homework), playing inside, playing outside, or riding in a car, van, bus, or truck. This information was linked to the data on the foods and nutrients consumed during each meal or snack. The first recall was conducted face-to-face, and the remaining 2 recalls were collected over the telephone. The childrens mothers were consulted on both the face-to-face and telephone recalls to clarify food details, food-preparation methods, or brand names that the children could not recall. To check the interinterviewer reliability of the dietary recalls, a subsample of 22 (5%) telephone recalls were tape-recorded and reentered by a second dietitian.
The NDS-R database (versions 4.01 and 4.02) is derived from the US Department of Agriculture Handbook No. 8 and includes many Hispanic food items (26). Average intakes of energy; percentages of energy from fat; energy densities; and average intakes of soda, childrens cereals, sweets and snack foods, fast foods, and fruit and vegetables were calculated. Energy density calculations included all foods and all beverages with >1.20 kJ/serving. Soda included all varieties of soda, both diet and regular. Childrens cereals included those that had a character designed to appeal to children on the box. Sweets and snack foods included ice cream, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, pies, candy, chips, popcorn, crackers, pretzels, and other salty snack foods. Fast foods included all foods and beverages purchased from national fast food restaurant chains. Fruits and vegetables were defined according to the 5-A-Day criteria (27). Accordingly, fresh, frozen, or canned fruit and 100% fruit juices were included, but fruit dishes that contained >30% of energy from fat were not included. Likewise, vegetables included all fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables. Fried or pickled vegetables and vegetable dishes that contained >30% of energy from fat were not included.
Height and weight
Standing height without shoes was measured twice, to the nearest millimeter, by using a portable, direct-reading stadiometer. If the 2 measures differed by >5 mm, a third measure was obtained. Body weight was measured twice, to the nearest 0.1 kg, by using digital scales while the subjects wore light indoor clothing but no shoes. If the 2 measures differed by >0.2 kg, a third measure was obtained. The mean of the 2 measures, or the median of the 3 measures, was used in the analysis. BMI was calculated as weight (in kg) divided by the square of height (in m).
Demographic variables
In the third-grade sample, the parents reported their childrens age, sex, and ethnicity during telephone interviews. In the fifth-grade sample, the mothers reported this information during a face-to-face interview.
Statistics
Because the children were sampled from 2 different populations, all analyses were calculated independently for each sample. Prior to our primary analyses, we examined weekdayweekend day effects by using multilevel analysis of variance, which showed significant heterogeneity (defined a priori as P < 0.10) between weekend days and weekdays in energy intake and percentage of energy from fat with the television on or off in both samples (F ranged from 3.57 to 15.16, all P < 0.06). Therefore, all subsequent analyses were performed separately for weekend day and weekday data, or effects for weekend day compared with weekday were included in the analyses. The average of the 2 weekdays were used in all weekday analyses.
First, the amount of food consumed during television viewing was described by the number of meals consumed with the television on or off, the amount of energy consumed with the television on or off, and the number of servings, based on standard US Department of Agriculture serving sizes, of foods in each of the 6 food categories that were consumed during television viewing. A paired sample sign test was used to examine differences in the percentage of meals consumed during television viewing between weekdays and weekend days. To examine the association between childrens food consumption during television viewing and their weight status, Spearman correlations were calculated between BMI and both percentage of total energy consumed with the television on and percentage of total energy from fat consumed with the television on.
Second, we examined the types of foods consumed during television viewing, the differences between the types of foods consumed with the television on or off, and the associations between the types of foods consumed during television viewing and childrens weight status. The types of foods consumed with the television on or off were described by the percentage of energy from fat, the energy density (kilojoules per gram of food or beverage containing >1.20 kJ/serving), and the percentage of energy that each of the 6 food categories contributed to the total amount of energy consumed with the television either on or off. To assess the relation between the types of foods consumed during television viewing and childrens weight status, Spearman correlations were calculated between childrens BMI and both the percentage of energy from fat consumed during television viewing and energy density of foods consumed during television viewing for the subsample of children who consumed any food while watching television. Finally, two-factor repeated-measures analysis of variance was used to examine differences in the types of foods consumed with the television on or off and in the types of foods consumed on weekdays and weekend days and the interaction between the types of foods consumed with the television on or off on weekdays and weekend days. All analyses were conducted by using SAS version 8.02 (SAS Institute Inc, Cary, NC).
| RESULTS |
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Total amount of food and energy consumed daily during television viewing
Food was consumed more often during television viewing, which included the viewing of television shows, movies, or videotapes on a videocassette recorder, than while participating in other activities. Specifically, <3% of total daily energy was consumed in each of the other 8 activity categories: playing video games or playing on a computer, watching a movie at the theatre, doing homework, reading (other than for homework), playing inside, playing outside, or riding in a car, van, bus, or truck. Therefore, these categories were combined with the category "just eating" and labeled "not watching television" or "television off." The average energy intake during television viewing was similar in both samples and was higher on weekend days than on weekdays. In the third-grade sample, 16.6 ± 16.4% (
± SD) of total daily energy was consumed during television viewing on weekdays, and 26.2 ± 30.6% of total daily energy was consumed during television viewing on weekend days. In the fifth-grade sample, 18.3 ± 19.9% of total daily energy was consumed during television viewing on weekdays, and 26.4 ± 29.8% of total daily energy was consumed during television viewing on weekend days. In the third-grade sample, a total of 73.6% of children ate while watching television on weekdays, and 62.9% ate while watching television on weekends. Similarly, in the fifth-grade sample, 76.0% of children ate while watching television on weekdays, and 58.2% ate while watching television on weekends. Two children (2.3%) in the third-grade sample and 5 children (4.1%) in the fifth-grade sample ate all of their food while watching television on weekends. All of the food categories that were defined in this study were consumed both when the television was on and when it was off. However, fast foods were rarely consumed during television viewing (Table 1
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| DISCUSSION |
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There were no significant differences between the fat content and energy density of foods consumed with the television on and those of foods consumed with the television off. This result is consistent with that of previous ecologic research in which no total nutrient differences were found between the overall diets of children who consumed >2 meals/d while watching television and those of their peers who consumed <2 meals/d watching television (7). However, in the present study, there were some differences in the relative energy contributions of some types of foods between times of television viewing and other times of the day. Specifically, in both samples, the percentage of energy from vegetables consumed during television viewing was significantly lower than that from vegetables consumed at other times during the day. Childrens preferences for vegetables are generally low (28); thus, if children are given a choice, they may be less likely to choose vegetables over other foods. Furthermore, snacks were consumed more frequently during television viewing than were any of the meals, and children may have more autonomy or choice in their snacks than in their meals. Accordingly, children may not choose vegetables for snacks during television viewing.
Although advertising has been shown to influence childrens food choices (1214), our results do not support the hypothesis that children consume more highly advertised foods while watching television. In the diverse third-grade sample, significantly less soda and fast food were consumed on weekdays during television viewing than during other times of the day, and in the mostly Latino fifth-grade sample, significantly less soda and significantly fewer sweets and snacks were consumed on weekend days during television viewing than during other times of the day. These results are counter to those of previous research that showed that more soda, snack foods, and pizza were consumed by children in households in which the television was on for >2 meals/d (7), and this discrepancy in results highlights the differences between the ecologic study design and our direct correlation design.
In the third-grade sample, the type, but not the amount or frequency, of foods consumed during television viewing was associated with the childrens current weight status. The children who consumed more energy from fat while watching television had higher BMI than did their peers who consumed fewer high-fat foods with the television on. A post hoc analysis showed no significant correlations between the number of servings from each food category consumed during television viewing on weekdays and the childrens BMI, but on weekends, soda consumption during television viewing was significantly associated with BMI (r = 0.26, P < 0.01).
There are some limitations to the methods used in these studies. First, although 24-h dietary recalls are recognized as the best method to estimate dietary intake in children (1522, 29) and are the most appropriate method to determine what children eat while watching television, the intraindividual variation in dietary intakes makes multiple recalls necessary to accurately estimate energy intake (30). However, prior to our primary analysis, we detected weekend-weekday differences in food consumption with the television on or off and, therefore, analyzed weekend and weekday data separately for each child. Accordingly, only one weekend recall and 2 weekday recalls were included in the analysis, which may have limited the reliability of the food and nutrient estimates and reduced the power to detect differences. The fat intakes reported by both samples were relatively low and may have reflected the childrens inability to report dietary intake, especially fat intake, or this finding may show true regional or ethnic differences in fat consumption.
Second, the samples were too small for analysis of differences in sex or ethnicity, and pooling data from heterogeneous samples increases the risk of invalid results (31, 32). For example, the 2 samples differed notably in vegetable intake. The fifth-grade children were from low-income, Latino homes in which beans, which were classified as a vegetable, were staple foods, and therefore their vegetable intake was significantly higher than that of the third-grade sample. The correlational results also differed between the 2 samples, so pooling the samples would likely obscure the differences in these relations and lead to misleading conclusions. Therefore, this research should be replicated in a large multiethnic sample.
In sum, this study shows that a significant proportion of childrens daily energy is consumed during television viewing, and the consumption of high-fat foods during television viewing on weekdays was associated with BMI in the third-grade sample. These findings support the speculation that eating while watching television is a potential mechanism linking television viewing to obesity. These results serve to justify future experimental studies to test this hypothesis. Interventions designed to help children change the types of foods consumed during television viewing, reduce food consumption during television viewing, or even reduce television viewing may markedly change childrens dietary intake patterns (33).
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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DMM was responsible for the design of the study, collection of the data, and the writing of the manuscript. JDK contributed to the design of the study and the securing of funding. YW and AV were responsible for data analysis and provided statistical advice. TNR was responsible for the securing of funding, the design of the study, and the writing of the manuscript. None of the authors had advisory board affiliations or financial interests in the organizations sponsoring the research.
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