From health class lectures to “get active” ad campaigns, it’s been drilled into my mind—and the minds of most people I know—that watching television can lead to obesity. But, here’s some news: it’s not just having (and using) a TV that matters, but also where that TV is located. Specifically, the place to be concerned with is a TV in the bedroom. According to a study conducted among overweight and obese adults, those with a television set in the bedroom watched on average more TV than those without one in the bedroom, potentially leading to a more sedentary and less healthy lifestyle.
How would a study try to find that connection? In this case, participants aged 21-65, with a body mass index (BMI) of 25-50 were chosen and observed regarding TV watching time, in the bedroom and outside of it, and sleep time. Features such as height, weight, BMI, education, and employment were recorded at baseline, before the study began. To determine TV watching time, household members were given codes to turn the television on, and screen time was recorded. To determine what counted as “bedroom television-viewing,” staff members made note of where the TV could be seen from, and classified it as bedroom TV if it could be seen from where the participant slept at bedtime.
The results of the study found little when it came to direct connections between most of the factors. For participants with a bedroom television, there wasn’t a significant difference in either sleep time or in BMI. The study suggests that these could be due to flaws within the methods chosen. Sleep time was self-recorded by participants, noting when they fell asleep, when they awoke, and any interruptions of sleep during the night, and so the accuracy of information depended on how accurately the participants kept track of their own sleep. As far as the connection to BMI, the authors describing the study suggest that a more accurate connection could be found using healthy-weight participants, rather than only those which were overweight or obese.
The study was able to come to one significant conclusion, however: participants with a TV in the bedroom spent more time watching television than those without one. The average TV viewing time for those with a bedroom TV was 5.4 hours a day, compared to only 3.6 hours for those with no television set in the bedroom. The results suggest that removing the television from the bedroom could help overweight and obese adults cut down on the time that they spend watching TV, allowing them more time to be active rather than sedentary, potentially improving health and decreasing BMI.
While there are no studies that have looked at the relationships between bedroom television, obesity, and sleep time in adults, there are studies that have focused on these relationships in children. Like adults, children with bedroom TVs watched more television on average than those without a TV in their room. In addition, those children got less sleep on average, and were more likely to be overweight. Preschool children, specifically, were found to be 31% more likely to be overweight if they had a television set in the bedroom.
So, what does this all mean? While we don’t yet know if it is directly related to obesity, we do know that a bedroom TV means more time spent watching TV on average, and that sedentary activities such as watching television should be limited. And, we know that in children, having a TV in the bedroom can lead to a greater chance of being overweight. So consider keeping the TV out of the bedroom, to encourage a healthier, less TV-oriented lifestyle.
"Removing the Bedroom Television Set: A Possible Method for Decreasing Television Viewing Time in Overweight and Obese Adults." Behavior Modification (July 2010) vol. 34 no. 4 290-29. Web. 25 Oct. 2010.
Image: flickr.com/williamhook
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