4 Troubled Teens Blog

In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that children under two years old should not watch any television. Now a new study finds that television watching may increase aggression in children under three years old.

• Dr. Jennifer Manganello and her colleagues conducted telephone surveys with parents of more than 3,100 children ages 1 to 3 years old.
• Sixty-five percent of the three-year-olds were watching more than two hours of TV per day, and in most homes, the television set was on more than seven hours a day.
• Dr. Manganello, of the University of Albany School of Public Health, found that "for every hour a child watched TV, his or her aggression went up 0.16 on a scale of zero to 30," after she screened out other factors such as living in an unsafe neighborhood or being spanked.

This study appeared in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Labels: violence, aggression, television

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A very popular TV show may be encouraging children and teenagers to smoke, according to a study in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr. Guy Eslick and his colleagues found that long-running prime-time cartoon "The Simpsons" contains a large number of references to smoking, and certain key characters on the program smoke. He also found, however, that most of the references to smoking were negative.

Dr. Eslick went through 18 seasons of the program and found almost 800 references to smoking. "Viewing 'The Simpsons' characters smoking may prompt children to consider smoking at an early age," he concluded.

Teen smoking has been associated with a wide range of health risks and behavioral problems. Studies have shown that teens who smoke are more likely to drink alcohol and abuse other drugs than are non-smoking teens.

Labels: television, teenagers, smoking

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Younger children who are exposed to adult content on television are more likely to have sex at earlier ages, according to a study presented at the meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies.

Dr. Hernan Delgado and his colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston studied 754 12-year-old children, and then followed up when the subjects were 18 years old. The children had kept diaries of the television they watched over two-day periods. Every hour of adult television they watched as 12-year-olds increased by 33 percent their chances of having sex at a young age.

"Television and movies are among the leading sources of information regarding sex and relationships for adolescents," Dr. Delgado explained.

In addition to unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, sexual behavior by young people may also indicate problems related to self-esteem, self-image, and teen substance abuse.

Labels: sex, children, teens, television

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