The Role of Media in Childhood Obesity: What We Learned From the Case of Chinese Children?

Recent years have witnessed the rapid increase in obesity among children. Based on a nation-wide sample of more than 3,000 Chinese children 6-18 years old, this study investigates the relationship between the children's body weight and the time they spent watching TV or playing video games. While most of the studies in other countries have found a positive relationship between TV watching and children's body weight, this study found no such relationship among the Chinese children. The authors speculate that it was probably because Chinese children on average spent much less time watching TV than their counterparts in the developed countries, so TV watching in China has not reached a level where it can significantly affect children's body weight. Further, this study finds that gender plays an important role: the boys who spend more time with TV and video games tend to be thinner, while watching TV or playing video games are not clearly correlated with the girls' body weight. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]