Kids' TV time linked to school woes, bad habits

(News Terupdate) - Young children who watch a lot of TV aren't just missing out on more stimulating activities. They may also be destined for problems at school and unhealthier habits later in life, new research suggests.

Each additional hour of TV that toddlers watch per week translates into poorer classroom behavior, lower math scores, less physical activity, and more snacking at age 10, according to a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

"Kids should be doing things that are intellectually enriching: playing with board games, playing with dice, playing with things that will improve their motor skills, reading," says the lead author of the study, Linda Pagani, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal, in Quebec. "All that is replaced by sitting on the couch."

Pagani and her colleagues followed more than 1,300 children for over seven years. Using parent surveys, the researchers measured the amount of TV the kids watched at age two-and-a-half, and again at age four-and-a-half.

Then, when the children were in fourth grade, the researchers asked the kids' schoolteachers to rate their academic performance, how well they got along with peers, and how well they listened and followed instructions. They also asked parents about the child's diet and level of physical activity.

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Each additional hour spent in front of the TV per week at age two-and-a-half corresponded to a 7 percent decrease in classroom engagement, a 6 percent decrease in overall math achievement, and a 10 percent increase in being bullied by peers. (Interestingly, TV time was not associated with reading skills.)

These findings suggest that kids who watch too much TV are "learning to be just a passive receptacle," Pagani says.

TV watching also appeared to have negative effects on physical health, with each additional weekly hour resulting in a 9 percent decline in overall physical activity, a 9 percent increase in soft-drink consumption, a 10 percent increase in snacks eaten, and a 5 percent increase in body mass index.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under the age of 2 watch no television at all, and after age 2 watch no more than one to two hours of quality programming a day. But nearly half of 1- to 2-year-olds and more than 40 percent of 2- to 3-year-olds are estimated to watch more than the recommended amount, the study notes.

How does TV harm kids?

Pagani's study is merely the latest to call attention to the drawbacks of childhood TV-watching. A number of studies have linked too much TV to a range of negative effects in kids, including shorter attention spans, slower language acquisition, increased aggression, and weight gain.

Experts have suggested several possible explanations for these findings. One theory is that time spent in front of the tube is time that could be spent on more enriching activities. As Dr. Jeffrey Brosco, M.D., a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, puts it, "Every hour that you're watching TV, you're not talking to someone, not playing a game, not building something with your blocks."

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Another theory is that the act of watching television can harm developing brains. A child's brain triples in size within the first three years of life in response to external stimulation, says Dr. Dimitri Christakis, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and the country's foremost expert on the health effects of TV in childhood.

"Early exposure to [television] can actually be over-stimulating for the developing brain, and that can lead to shorter attention spans [and] cognitive difficulties," says Christakis, the author of "The Elephant in the Living Room: Make Television Work for Your Kids."

The rapid edits and quick sequences found in many of today's TV shows may be especially harmful in this respect, Christakis adds. "The hypothesis we have is that this conditions the mind to expect high levels of input, and by comparison, reality is boring -- it doesn't happen fast enough," he says.

Yet another possibility is that the negative effects of TV that have been reported in studies are in fact a symptom of broader family and household dynamics. In the new study, for instance, the children whose mothers were less educated and children from single-parent families tended to watch more television. Although Pagani and her colleagues controlled for these and other factors in their analysis, household habits can shape studies like this in ways that can be difficult to tease out.

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"It's always possible that what you're measuring is not TV itself, but families that are more likely to let their kids watch TV versus families that don't want them to watch TV, or maternal education," says Brosco. "No one really understands what the effects of TV truly are, but so many studies--like this [one]--suggest TV is just plain bad for you."

Some TV shows are better than others

Watching television isn't necessarily harmful, however, and it doesn't have to be a mindless activity, says Christakis. He points out that Pagani and her colleagues did not ask about the specific programming that kids watched, which may weaken the findings.

"The results of this study probably in some ways misrepresent the reality," Christakis says. "Studies that we've done find that what kids watch--and how they watch--is as important as how much they watch."

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Christakis believes that children should watch no more than an hour of television a day at any age. But, he says, parents should distinguish between mind-numbing cartoons and educational programs such as Sesame Street. "Parents need to know that the best-quality shows have a curriculum," he says. "They're trying to teach your child something, anything from the letter k to skills like how to share or how to handle a conflict."

According to Christakis, the best way for young children to watch TV is with a parent. This allows parents to use potentially negative content (such as violence or advertising) as a learning experience, and also provides an opportunity to engage with the children and reinforce the message of educational shows.

Source : CNN

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Stockbroker vanished; husband left town with kids

New York (News Terupdate) - Tom McLachlan, a police captain in West Valley, Utah, felt a surge of adrenalin when he received a phone call two weeks ago from authorities some 200 miles away in Idaho.

A motorist looking for a better cell phone signal had found female skeletal remains on a hilltop near Idaho Falls. McLachlan had a case on his desk involving a 28-year-old stockbroker and mother of two who vanished in December under suspicious circumstances.

Could the body be Susan Powell's?

McLachlan says he now has doubts. The skeletal remains seemed to have been there much longer than Susan Powell has been missing.

"Susan has been missing for five months, so the body is likely not her," he told CNN. "We need to wait until DNA tests come back, which could take up to a few weeks."

Susan Powell's disappearance is the kind of case that gets under an investigator's skin. Right now, police have plenty of suspicion but scant evidence.

Powell simply vanished, leaving her purse, wallet and cell phone behind in her home.

Her husband, Josh Powell, told police she was asleep when he left after midnight, taking their children, ages 2 and 4, on a camping trip in below-freezing weather.

He told police he spent the early morning hours of December 7 with his children in the family van in Simpson Springs Campground, a 90-minute drive from the Powells' home.

Police entered the case that Monday afternoon. The children had not been dropped off at day care and neither Josh nor Susan Powell had shown up at work. No one had heard from them.

"We were concerned that the family was in the house and some accident, maybe a gas leak, had injured them," said McLachlan. "So we broke into the home when no one answered the door."

Police sources told CNN that officers found a large wet spot on the carpet in the home. It was being dried by two fans, they said, but would give no further details.

West Valley police say Josh Powell is the only person they are looking at, but they are not calling him a suspect in his wife's disappearance. They say they have no physical evidence of foul play.

CNN called several times seeking comment from Josh Powell and his attorney, Scott Williams. The phone calls were not returned.

Police say they have been unable to confirm Powell's story about the camping trip. They searched the campground, but any potential evidence had been covered by heavy snow.

Police characterize Josh Powell as being uncooperative, saying he would not lead them to the exact location of the camp site. In January, he packed up his belongings and moved with the children to his parents' home in Puyallup, Washington.

Susan Powell's father, Charles Cox, told CNN she is not the kind of person who would go off on her own without contacting her family.

"She would never leave those two children behind," Cox said.

Susan Powell's father says there was trouble in the marriage, with financial pressures being the primary issue between the couple. Josh had been unemployed until just before his wife disappeared.

In the months leading up to her disappearance, Susan Powell had talked about getting a divorce, family and friends told CNN. They asked that their names not be published because the investigation is ongoing.

Police are asking for the public's help in solving this case. Susan Powell stands 5-foot-3, is 130 pounds and has brown hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Susan Powell is asked to call the West Valley Police Department tip line at (801) 840-4000. An $11,000 reward is offered.

Source : CNN

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Obese kids more vulnerable to bullies

(News Terupdate) - Children in Grades 3 through 6 who are obese are more likely to be bullied than their normal-weight peers, a new study has found.

No one who has attended grade school -- or who has even the slightest familiarity with children -- will be surprised by these findings. What is surprising, however, is that obese children are bullied more often even if they possess qualities that can discourage bullies, such as having good social skills or doing well in school.

"When we started this study, I really suspected that we might find that the obesity or overweight might not be the driving force," says the lead author of the study, Julie Lumeng, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. "What we found is that it didn't matter. No matter how good your social skills, if you were overweight or obese you were more likely to be bullied."

In the study, which appears this week in the journal Pediatrics, Lumeng and her colleagues followed more than 800 children -- all born in 1991 -- from 10 cities across the U.S. When the children were in the third, fifth, and sixth grades, the researchers surveyed teachers, mothers, and the children themselves about whether they were bullied, and also surveyed the adults about the children's social skills. They then compared these responses with the children's body mass index, a simple ratio of height and weight.

Overall, kids who were obese were 65 percent more likely to be bullied than their peers of normal weight; overweight kids were 13 percent more likely to be bullied, although that finding was not statistically significant, the study notes. This pattern persisted even when the researchers took into account other factors that are associated with both obesity and being bullied, such as coming from a low-income family or doing poorly in school.

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Still, the findings don't rule out the possibility that being overweight and being bullied share a common, underlying cause, says Matthew N. Davis, M.D., a primary care physician and the director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

"There's always been the question in the back of people's minds about whether there was another factor involved which was related to both bullying and obesity," says Davis, who was not involved in Lumeng's study.

Sylvia Rimm, Ph.D., a clinical professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland, Ohio, suggests that the low self-esteem of overweight children may make them targets for their peers.

Rimm, who wasn't involved in the study, surveyed thousands of middle-school children for a 2004 book, "Rescuing the Emotional Lives of Overweight Kids." "Kids who considered themselves very overweight not only were bullied, but...indicated more loneliness, saw themselves as troublemakers, and saw themselves as sad, fearful, and wimpy," she says. "They really have huge struggles."

One reason that children might be more apt to pick on their overweight classmates is that they are taking after adults, says Davis.

"Children pick up behaviors from adults, so we always have to keep in mind how we're modeling respect for others around multiple issues, including weight," he says. "Imagine how many signals kids get about weight just by hearing conversations by adults or seeing advertisements on TV. The messages are everywhere in terms of trying to control weight and be a different size than you are right now."

Wendy Craig, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, says that bullying and obesity are both major public health concerns that teachers and schools -- and not just parents -- need to address.

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Teachers "are like social architects," says Craig, who has studied bullying for more than a decade but wasn't involved in the current study. "They set the tone for what's acceptable. Teachers reinforce these messages every day in their classroom when they interact with kids."

In fact, positive interactions with parents may help prevent bullying in the first place, according to another new study, presented today at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Vancouver, B.C.

In that study, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center analyzed data from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, which included more than 45,000 parents of children between the ages of 10 and 17.

Children whose parents shared ideas and talked often with them were about 40 percent less likely to bully other children compared to the children of parents who said they didn't do those things regularly. On the other hand, the children of parents who said they are often angry with them or who feel bothered by them were up to three times more likely to be bullies, according to the study.

Interestingly, previous studies have suggested that obese children are more likely to bully others, in addition to being the victims of bullying. One possible explanation for this, Lumeng says, is that children who have difficulty staying calm and controlling their impulses to lash out at others may also have a hard time regulating their eating, and may eat for emotional reasons rather than out of hunger.

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Overweight children are caught in a vicious circle of self-destructive behavior, Rimm says. "They're inactive, and they're sad kids, and they use eating as gratification," she says. "Of course, the effect is that continued eating is almost their only source of satisfaction, and so it's a terrible cycle."

Protecting overweight kids -- socially and physically --requires helping them break this cycle, Rimm adds.

"A key thing is to discover their strengths and get them involved and active in extracurricular activities," she says. "If they concentrate only on their weight, they're not going to build confidence."

Source : CNN

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Parents using smartphones to entertain bored kids

(News Terupdate) - When Julie Sidder's daughters were younger, her diaper bag was filled with coloring books, crayons, storybooks and little games in case one of them became restless.

Now that Sidder's kids are 4 and 7, the diaper bag is gone, but the need for entertainment -- especially in restaurants -- is not, which is why two-thirds of the apps on Sidder's iPhone are for her children.

"People have always brought toys, or something to entertain their child, into restaurants and stores," says the mom, who lives in West Bloomfield, Michigan. "Now we just have better technology."

Harried parents for years have relied on glowing electronic screens -- TVs, video games, computers -- to entertain children in the home. Now more and more parents are discovering smartphones' similar ability to engage squirmy kids at restaurants, in the car and anywhere else where youngsters grow bored.

Almost half of the top 100-selling apps in the iTunes App Store were for preschool or elementary-aged children in November 2009, according to a content analysis by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, which promotes digital media technologies to advance children's learning.

Expert Carly Shuler says the reason for this -- assuming the majority of 3- to 10-year-olds don't own their own phones -- is because adults are taking advantage of the smartphone's ability to act as a mobile learning or entertainment device for their children.

Shuler, a fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (part of the Sesame Workshop) calls this phenomenon the "pass-back" effect -- as in parents passing their phones back to their bored kids.

Shortly after the iPhone came out, Shuler said she noticed children as young as 3 years old playing with the shiny devices.

"I saw it on the subway, at the grocery store -- anywhere you'd see a parent and child interacting, really," she said.

Even AT&T acknowledged this trend in the current commercial where Luke Wilson "passes back" a smartphone to a crying child in a restaurant, Shuler said.

App developers have noticed and are creating kids' games for phones, even though they don't think toddlers are buying smartphones, she said.

Almost all children in the U.S. have access to a mobile device, according to the Sesame Workshop. A 2007 study found that 93 percent of 6 to 9-year-olds had access to a cell phone in the home and more than 30 percent owned their own phone. Shuler said these number have only increased since the study was conducted.

So how do such young children come to understand this new touchscreen technology?

"A child is not as afraid that they're going to break something or do something wrong [as adults are]," Shuler said. "They're more likely to pick [the phone] up and just play with it, which is the best way to learn."

Toddler Teasers is one of the apps Sidder downloaded for her 4-year-old daughter, Ava. Sidder said the educational app, which asks Ava to pick out certain shapes, is a fun learning tool the pair can play together.

But Sidder says even the less educational apps on her iPhone, such as Disney Cover Styler, Red Carpet Dress Up and 7-year-old Ella's favorite, Shrek Cart, are teaching her kids hand-eye coordination and to be comfortable with technology.

"I don't use [the iPhone] to parent my child," she said. "I use it to entertain them ... if they're on it an hour a week, that's a lot. When we're sitting at home, they're not playing on my phone. It's just something that they do when we're out."

Sidder acknowledges that some people think letting young children play with your phone is a bad thing. But those are usually the same people who complain about children running around a restaurant kicking and screaming, she said.

The app market for kids has continued to grow at a rapid rate since the iLearn analysis was published six months ago, said Shuler.

Shuler said her research has found that children's educational apps tend to cost less than apps for older children or adults. But the kids' games and other apps are only one reason iPhones and other smartphones are a hit with children, she said.

"When you look at the design of the iPhone ... the interface is very tactile and well suited to what a child naturally does," Shuler said. "They think with their fingers. If they see something they like, they'll jab at it and touch it. And children love flipping things. If you flip the iPhone, something will happen. If you shake the iPhone, something will happen."

Take a look at some of the best-selling toys throughout the years, she said. Kids have always loved to play with toy telephones, toy lawn mowers, toy ovens and toy vacuum cleaners.

"They like to play with things their parents have," she said. "Considering how much time parents spend on [their phones], it makes sense that kids would want them, too."

And it's not just smartphones -- kids enjoy playing and learning on any mobile electronic gadget, Shuler said.

"Take pictures with your kids," she said. "Or pull out the calculator and ask your kid to help add up what the groceries are going to cost. These are really powerful devices."

Robin Orman of Waterford, Michigan, says her 1 year old entertains himself just by holding on to her cell phone, which is not a smartphone. Orman's 2-year-old daughter, on the other hand, already prefers a touchscreen device.

Orman said her older daughter enjoys playing educational flashcard games and listening to music on her mother-in-law's iPhone. She likes to slide the pictures around, she added.

"I'd love an iPhone," Orman said. But, for now, "it's just another one of those things [the kids] get to do at grandma's house."

Source : CNN

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Tobacco in candy-like form can poison kids

(News Terupdate) - A new generation of smokeless, flavored tobacco products that look like breath mints or breath-freshening strips may be life-threatening for children who mistake them for candy, according to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Nicotine is a poison, and now we're seeing smokeless tobacco products that look like Tic Tacs or M&M's, which parents can leave on the counter and children can be attracted to," says Greg N. Connolly, D.M.D., the director of the Tobacco Control Research Group at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Connolly led a research team that found that smokeless tobacco products are the second most common cause of nicotine poisoning in children, after cigarettes. The researchers reviewed data from 61 poison control centers and identified 13,705 cases of tobacco ingestion between 2006 and 2008, the vast majority of which were in infants. Smokeless tobacco was involved in 1,768 of the cases.

The new products -- currently being test-marketed in three cities -- include Camel Orbs, which resemble breath mints; Camel Sticks, which are about the size of a toothpick and dissolve in the mouth; and Camel Strips, which are similar to breath-freshening strips. Small, teabag-like "snus" -- pouches filled with tobacco that are placed between the upper lip and gum -- are also a potential hazard, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.

These products are not smoking cessation aids; rather, they are marketed as a nicotine alternative in places where smoking isn't allowed.

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Although children in the study were most often poisoned from eating cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products in general, the researchers single out the new, dissolvable products -- especially Camel Orbs -- as a "major concern." Orbs are available in cinnamon and mint flavors and could easily be mistaken for candy, the researchers say.

"The candy form can only mean trouble, particularly for children and infants," says Connolly. "And snus are attractive, flavorful, and easily ingested by an infant or child."

R.J. Reynolds spokesman David Howard says that the packaging of Camel Orbs and the other dissolvable products is "100 percent child-resistant in accordance with Consumer Product Safety Commission standards" and bears a label that says "Keep Out of Reach of Children." Adults, he adds, should ensure that "children do not have access to any tobacco products -- including dissolvable tobacco products."

Still, the researchers say, the pellets could find their way into children's mouths. Nicotine poisoning can cause nausea or vomiting, and severe cases can result in convulsions, respiratory failure, and even death. Just under 0.5 milligrams of nicotine per pound of body weight is the minimum lethal dose for children, according to Connolly.

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A chemical analysis conducted by Connolly and his colleagues found that Camel Orbs contain an average of 0.83 milligrams of nicotine in each pellet. Some of the nicotine is "un-ionized," which allows for more rapid absorption and may be more toxic than other forms of the drug, they write.

"A small pellet with a rapid release of nicotine and a young child with a low body weight can be a very serious problem," Connolly says. "We have to look at high-risk groups who may ingest these thinking that they are candy, and be very cautious about dispensing them and not leaving them around."

Regulators, he adds, "must ask tough questions about who is at risk from these products, and who we are trying to help with them."

To focus on the poison risk of Camel Orbs and dissolvable nicotine products is "remarkably selective," Howard says. He points out that Connolly and his colleagues make no mention of nicotine gums and lozenges used in smoking cessation, which are also available in a range of flavors and resemble candy and gum.

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In a commentary accompanying the study, officials from the Center for Tobacco Products at the Food and Drug Administration write that dissolvable tobacco products "pose unique concerns for public health authorities." Dr. Marisa Cruz, M.D., and Dr. Lawrence Deyton, M.D., write that the FDA has requested research on the products from tobacco companies and will hold a series of public meetings to help develop a regulatory policy.

The FDA has broad authority to regulate tobacco products under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which was signed into law last June. Later that fall, the agency banned the sale of candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes.

"I would feel safer if the FDA...looked at the packaging [of these products] as well as their safety," says Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, M.D., an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

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While accidental infant poisonings are certainly cause for concern, purposeful ingestion of smokeless tobacco products by kids and teens may be a larger problem, Winickoff points out. As the study notes, the use of smokeless tobacco products among adolescents increased 6 percent per year from 2002 to 2006.

"An adolescent thinks this is harmless because it looks harmless, but they're exposing their brain to nicotine, and there's a chance that they would be primed to develop a nicotine addiction," says Winickoff, who was not involved in the study. "If teens ended up using smokeless product because they are attracted to candy flavors and they end up getting addicted to nicotine, the public health benefit of smokeless tobacco is neutralized."

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One of the study authors, Terry F. Pechacek, Ph.D., the associate director for science at the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, in Atlanta, says that more than half of people who use smokeless tobacco are underage.

Products such as Camel Orbs, he says, "look like candy, are more easily concealed, and can be used at school or in front of parents. That raises even greater concerns."

Source : CNN

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