Screentime and child health

The media are obsessed with the issue of 21st century children spending too much time staring at screens: some reports have amounted to a moral panic (https://ift.tt/2EodNMh). The release of a statement from the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) was therefore welcome (rcpch.ac.uk/resources/health-impacts-screen-time-guide-clinicians-parents). It was based on a systematic ‘review of reviews’ which synthesised the large amount of evidence available (Stiglic N, Viner R. doi: 10. 1136/bmjopen- 2018–0 23 191). Rather than go back to the primary data, they identified 13 reviews of varying quality that had already done this. They assessed each review’s conclusions qualitatively, rather than doing further meta-analyses. Screentime use included television (TV), computers, tablets and smartphones. TV-watching predominated in most reviews. Different outcome domains were considered.

With regards to obesity or adiposity, they concluded that there was a positive association with TV screentime, but they could not define a ‘safe threshold’...

from Archives of Disease in Childhood current issue https://ift.tt/2U2r1qx