TV in Children's Bedroom Linked to Reduced Sleep

A recent study confirms that each additional hour of television viewing in young children is  linked to seven fewer minutes of daily sleep.

The study, led by investigators from MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) in collaboration with Harvard School of Public Health (HSPS), found a consistent relation between increased T.V. viewing and shorter sleep duration.

The study was based on over 1,800 children of ages 6 months to 8 years.  They found that when TVs were placed in children's bedroom a consistent reduction in sleep time was noticed due to increased viewing. This association was more evident in boys than girls.

The study included children and their mothers who were a part of Project Viva- a long term investigation of health effects- during pregnancy and after birth.  The mothers were interviewed on the amount of time their children spent in front of televisions, the time older children spent watching television daily, whether children ages 4-7 slept in a room where the T.V. was present and lastly the average daily amount of sleep. These answers were later analyzed by the researchers.

The researchers saw that over the course of the study, every additional hour of T.V. viewing was linked with 7 minutes less sleep daily. It was children coming from racial and ethnic minorities who were more likely to sleep in a room where T.V. was present.  In such children, the presence of T.V. in the bedroom reduced the average sleep by half-an hour every day.

The authors report that, " The results support previous short-term studies finding that both television viewing and sleeping in a room with a television decrease total sleep time, which can have negative effects on both mental and physical health."

It is important that parents take steps to limit screen time as such sedentary behavior further leads to obesity and chronically poor health. What is worse is that researchers at Cornell and Purdue University link T.V. viewing among toddlers to autism.

The study was documented in the May issue of Pediatrics.