Children eat more while watching TV
by RachelTheWriterA recent study in Penn State of preschool children has found that how much lunch your little ones eat alters significantly depending on whether they watch TV while eating or not.
The researchers studied 24 children aged between three and five in a laboratory test, and found that when kids watched TV while eating they ate approximately a third more food. The children were fed lunch for four days at the lab, two days watching the cartoon and two days not. They were fed the same lunch each day – pizza, unsweetened apple sauce, baby carrots and milk. They were also offered an afternoon snack on each day.
The researchers found that the preschoolers who usually ate while watching TV ate around one-third more lunch when they watched TV than when they didn’t. On the other hand, the kids who never watched TV while eating tended to eat less when they had the opportunity to watch TV.
Dr Lori Francis, one of the study’s authors, told Emaxhealth.com: “The study shows that TV viewing can either increase or decrease preschool children’s food intakes and suggests that when children consistently view TV during meals, TV viewing may distract children from normal fullness cues which can lead to overeating in children as it may in adults.”
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