Melissa Lutz, M.D., a fellow in the Department of Pediatrics at the school of medicine, and Eliana Perrin, M.D., M.P.H., Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at the school of medicine and the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, will share insight into their team’s study that looked at the association between TV screen time, including during meals, and dietary practices among 2-year-old children.
Hi, my name is Melissa lux. I am a general academic pediatrics fellow at johns Hopkins and I was invited to present my research at the pediatric academic societies meeting. On behalf of the Green light study team. I will be talking about how screen time, especially during meals is associated with poor dietary practices and two year old Children. There is a well established association between screen time and obesity for this and other reasons, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that Children less than 18 to 24 months old avoid digital media Children 2 to 5 years old limit screen time to one hour or less per day and that Children of all agents do not watch tv during mealtimes. Previously, the association between screen time and obesity was attributed to sedentary habits alone. Now however, there is more emphasis on the impact of screen time on diet. While the majority of the literature on this topic is focused on older Children and adolescents. There is limited research examining the association between screen time and diet in younger Children. So the objective of our study was to examine the association between Tv screen time, including Tv during meals and dietary practices of two year old Children. To do this, we performed a cross sectional secondary data analysis of measures collected in the Green Light intervention study. The Green Light study was a large cluster randomized trial of an obesity prevention program that was performed at four academic pediatric institutions across the country from 2010 to 2017 participants were enrolled at two months and followed up at each well child check until five years of age data for this analysis comes from a 24 month well child check time point In the study for analysis, we looked at tv time measured in two ways. The first was how much time a child spends actively watching television per day. The second was whether or not the Tv is on during the child's meal times. We assessed the association between these measures and the child's dietary practices, including the numbers of fruits, vegetables and junk foods and volume of juice they consumed daily and whether or not they consumed other sugar sweetened beverages and fast food over the past 24 hours. A total of 529 Children had complete data and were included in the analysis, 52% identified as Latino and 30% identified as Black and Latino. 59% of their participants recorded an annual household income of less than $20,000 per year, 37% screened positive for food insecurity and 61% were enrolled in the supplemental nutrition program for women and Children known as WIC. We found that Children who watch 90 or 120 minutes of TV daily compared to Children who watch 60 minutes of TV daily are more likely to consume junk food. Sugar sweetened beverages and fast food. Additionally, Children had the TV on during meals for almost 2.7 times more likely to consume sugar sweetened beverages and junk food than Children who did not have the TV on during meals. There are also two times more likely you can see in fast food and 40% less likely than some fruits and vegetables. In summary, we found that TV time over 16 minutes and mealtime TV were both associated with most poor dietary practices into your old Children. While this association has been demonstrated in older Children, our findings showed the clustering of dietary and screen time behaviors also exist in toddlers, which puts them at risk for later obesity. This highlights the needs for early obesity prevention efforts, specifically counseling about screen time in general and screen time during meals. Additionally, these findings align with the current american Academy of Pediatric guidelines that two year old Children should limit screen time to 60 minutes or less per day and should avoid Tv during mealtimes, reinforcing the importance of integrating these guidelines into our clinical practice. The Green Light study was funded by an N. I. H. R. Owen Grant. I would like to thank the Green Light P. I. S. Doctors Rothman Karen Ian Sanders and Delamater for their assistance and support for this project. Mm hmm.
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