Trends in Sedentary Behaviors among High School Students: Analysis of Television and Other Screen Time Activities
IntroductionScreen based sedentary behavior is taking over for adolescents and becoming a primary behavioral target in preventing obesity. Sedentary behavior is primarily determined as time spent viewing TV, escalating the possibility for overweight and obesity in adolescence. While screen time is increasing, physical activity is continuing to decline. Screen time can affect these adolescences in many ways. Recent studies indicate students who engaged in 2 or fewer hours of screen time a day were less likely to have smoked, bullied another person, be bullied, be in a physical fight, intentionally harm themselves, or have attempted suicide when compared to students who engaged in more than 2 hours a day (Vermont Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2016) Also, according to Vermont Department of Health, high school students who engaged in 2 or fewer hours of screen time a day were significantly more likely to get A's or B's, feel valued by their community, and participate in at least one hour of after school activities (e.g. sports, band, drama, or clubs run by school or community groups) when compared to students who engaged in more than 2 hours of daily screen time (Vermont YRBS, 2016) According to the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, suggests that study findings are now showing links between sedentary behaviors and a range of health outcomes (Biddle, 2011).Instead of spending 2 or fewer hours a day on screen time, many adolescences are spending an average of 3 or more hours watching TV and/or Computer. African American children report spending more time in sedentary behaviors than do Caucasian and Hispanic youth, and youth from lower income families report more sedentary time than youth from more affluent families, but those disparities are not evident in studies based on objective measures. Older children and teens are more likely to spend more time in sedentary behaviors and to exceed recommended limits on sedentary time than younger children. The evidence on whether girls or boys are more sedentary is mixed. Objective data revealed teenage girls are more sedentary than teenage boys, but surveys indicated boys spend more time playing video games (Lou, 2014) Research shows the amount of time young people spend in sedentary behaviors has increased in recent years, and while this includes TV time, it is a dramatic increase in other types of screen time, such as computers and video games, that appears to be driving the trend (Foehr, 2010) Importantly, watching TV is also linked with unhealthy eating. The association between TV time and overweight and obesity among youth may be due to a number of factors, including unhealthy eating, the biological effects of sitting, spending less time being physically active, or some combination (Lou, 2014) Catherine Steiner Adair, a Harvard affiliated clinical psychologist and author, feels that parents are throwing screens at children all day long, giving them distractions rather than teaching them how to self soothe, to calm themselves down (Brody, 2015) According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (2015) before age 2, children should not be exposed to any electronic media, the pediatrics academy maintains, because a child s brain develops rapidly during these first years, and young children learn best by interacting with people, not screens." Older children and teenagers should spend no more than one or two hours a day with entertainment media, preferably with high quality content, and spend more free time playing outdoors, reading, doing hobbies (Brody, 2015) Previous studies have documented important sex differences in the time devoted to physical activity (PA) and screen based activities (ST) Adolescent males have generally higher levels of physical activity than their female counterparts, but it is unclear whether this sex difference would persist in the adherence to both PA and ST recommendations concurrently. Females and males engage differently in sedentary behavior.