{"id":6377,"date":"2014-07-28T07:00:54","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=6377"},"modified":"2014-07-11T08:01:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T12:01:21","slug":"teens-and-tv-are-they-overdoing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/07\/teens-and-tv-are-they-overdoing-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Teens and TV: Are They Overdoing It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Raising-Healthy-Kids-Unhealthy-World\/dp\/1401604129\/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1405079497&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=raising+healthy+kids+in+an+unhealthy+world\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-4481 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2013\/03\/Raising-Healthy-Kids.jpg\" alt=\"Raising Healthy Kids\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a>By now, most of you\u00a0are aware that too much screen viewing for children and teens is linked to \u00a0elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of sleep, school problems, aggression, and being overweight. And we know that teen viewing habits often carry over to adult\u00a0viewing habits.<\/p>\n<p>So how are teens doing with the American Academy of Pediatricians&#8217; recommendation to limit screen time to two hours or less a day. Yes, that is ALL screens. Furthermore, children under the age of two\u00a0are supposed to have ZERO hours of screen time.<\/p>\n<p>The 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the 2012 National Youth Fitness Survey reports the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>31%\u00a0of youths that are normal or underweight are meeting the guideline\u00a0\u00a0(this includes computer use)<\/li>\n<li>23% of overweight and 20% of obese\u00a0youths are meeting the guideline<\/li>\n<li>99% of teens report watching TV every day<\/li>\n<li>91% of teens report using their computers every day outside of school<\/li>\n<li>Gender differences for the amount of TV viewing were not significant, meaning there was little difference between boys and girls<\/li>\n<li>A break down of\u00a0TV habits by race and Hispanic origin show 29% white, 26% Hispanic and 20% black teens meet daily screen-time requirements<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Clearly, we still have work to do when it comes to limiting screen usage. And keep in mind these numbers could be low given it is difficult to capture screen usage with all the possible devices kids and teens could be using.<\/p>\n<p>In my book, Raising Healthy Kids in an Unhealthy World, I encourage all parents to make a media plan and list several suggestions. Here are 5:<\/p>\n<p>1) Take TV out of a child&#8217;s bedroom.<\/p>\n<p>2) Find the &#8220;good media&#8221;. The right kind of media can improve learning and teach empathy, tolerance and interpersonal skills<\/p>\n<p>3) Model good media usage as a parent. Kids watch what you do to learn.<\/p>\n<p>4) Turn off the TV during meals and don&#8217;t have it on for background noise.<\/p>\n<p>5) Bypass commercials in order to limit exposure to junk foods and other unhealthy choices.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By now, most of you\u00a0are aware that too much screen viewing for children and teens is linked to \u00a0elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of sleep, school problems, aggression, and being overweight. And we know that teen viewing habits often carry over to adult\u00a0viewing habits. So how are teens doing with the American Academy of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[914],"tags":[429,2965,2967,66,2964,1822,772,2966],"class_list":["post-6377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-relationships-2","tag-child-obesity","tag-families-and-obesity","tag-media-and-youth","tag-overweight-kids","tag-overweight-teens","tag-parenting-children","tag-parenting-teens","tag-tv-viewing-and-obesity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Teens and TV: Are They Overdoing It?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/07\/teens-and-tv-are-they-overdoing-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Teens and TV: Are They Overdoing It?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By now, most of you\u00a0are aware that too much screen viewing for children and teens is linked to \u00a0elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of sleep, school problems, aggression, and being overweight. And we know that teen viewing habits often carry over to adult\u00a0viewing habits. So how are teens doing with the American Academy of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/07\/teens-and-tv-are-they-overdoing-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-07-28T11:00:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-07-11T12:01:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/files\/2013\/03\/Raising-Healthy-Kids.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Teens and TV: Are They Overdoing It?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2014\/07\/teens-and-tv-are-they-overdoing-it.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Teens and TV: Are They Overdoing It?","og_description":"By now, most of you\u00a0are aware that too much screen viewing for children and teens is linked to \u00a0elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, lack of sleep, school problems, aggression, and being overweight. And we know that teen viewing habits often carry over to adult\u00a0viewing habits. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6377"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6384,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6377\/revisions\/6384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}