CHILDRENS TELEVISION VIEWING, BODY-FAT, AND PHYSICAL-FITNESS

Purpose. The study examines the relationship between children's televi sion (TV) viewing and physical fitness. Design. Cross-sectional data f rom questionnaires and objective measures were analyzed. Setting. Data were collected during the fall of 1990 from public elementary school students in a suburban California city. Subjects. Approximately 98% of eligible students participated. Of these, 10% were dropped due to mis sing data, yielding a final sample of 284 girls and 304 boys. Measures . Children reported their amount of TV viewing on a typical summer day ; parents reported their child's TV viewing on a typical weekday durin g the school year Car diovascular fitness was the 1-mile run/walk. Bod y fat was both the child's body mass index: (BMI) and skinfolds. Addit ional measures included muscular strength/endurance and flexibility. R esults. Mile run/walk times were associated with both parental (eta(2) =.051 and.031 for boys and girls, respectively) and child reports (et a(2) =.020 and.028) of the child's amount of TV viewing. Parental repo rts, but not child reports, of the child's TV viewing were related to BMI ( eta(2) =.041 and .058) and skinfolds (eta(2) =.050 and .029). Ne ither measure of children's TV viewing was related to muscular strengt h/endurance or flexibility. Conclusions. Children's TV viewing seems t o be weakly and inconsistently related to various components of physic al fitness. However given the tracking of cardiovascular disease risk factors from childhood into adulthood and the high proportion of child ren who watch television, these relationships are worthy of further st udy.