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.

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Jesse James spotted without ring

(News Terupdate) - After a month at a treatment facility to deal with "personal issues," Jesse James was spotted back at his Los Angeles area home Monday. He was not wearing a wedding ring as he took his children to school.

James, 40, checked into the treatment center last month after his marriage to Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock went into a crisis amid reports that he had multiple affairs.

Bullock, 45, had remained out of sight until earlier this month when she was photographed hiking in Northern California, also not wearing her wedding ring.

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Let teens drink? Parents wrestle with the question

(News Terupdate) - Martha was tough on her children when it came to alcohol in their early teens.

When she saw beer at a party her then-14-year-old daughter was attending, she broke it up and told all the kids to call their parents. When her son was about the same age, she grounded him for a month after learning he had a drinking episode.

But her outright prohibition softened when her children reached their late teens. She lives in Georgia, a state that allows parents to let their underage children -- but no one else's -- have alcohol in their own homes. She lets her now-18-year-old son have a beer or a little wine at home, in part to kill curiosity, but won't serve his friends.

Suspecting alcohol will be part of his senior prom experience, she's having him take a limo. While planning to escort him and his friends to a rented beach house for spring break this year, she expected to have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but she wouldn't furnish alcohol, and she'd take away their car keys.

It's probably unrealistic, she says, for parents to forbid alcohol to older teens outright. Instead, she teaches moderation, safety and responsibility.

"If you can be around your child and monitor them all the time and watch everything they do, and if it works for you and them, then [prohibit it]," said Martha, an Atlanta-area resident who spoke on condition that her last name be withheld. "But I think, given what's out there, you have to teach them how to be safe and considerate of others."

U.S. law requires states, as a condition of getting highway funds, to prohibit people under 21 from buying or publicly possessing alcohol. Some states have situational exceptions, but no state allows people to furnish alcohol to an underage person who isn't their child, ward or spouse, said Mike Hilton, deputy director of the division of epidemiology and prevention research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

States' underage drinking laws

Yet minors find a way get alcohol elsewhere.

About 10.1 million people ages 12 to 20 in the United States -- more than a quarter of that age group -- drank at least once in a certain month's period in 2008, according to that year's National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

More than 30 percent of underage drinkers said they paid for their most recent drink; for those who didn't pay, the most common source was 21 or older and not a relative, according to the survey for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

With matters of health, safety, morality and legality to consider, what goes through parents' minds when they determine what stance to take with their children on alcohol?

Debbie Taylor says she told her son, Casey, that she didn't want him to drink while underage, but if he ever did, he was not to drive.

She wishes her message had been different.

Casey Taylor, of Casper, Wyoming, was 18 when he died of alcohol poisoning in July 2002. Just two months out of high school and one month into living away from home with a roommate, he had succumbed to a challenge from friends to chug a large amount of rum, his mother said.

His blood-alcohol content, she said, was 0.41 percent.

Debbie Taylor said she'd never caught her son -- an honor roll student and varsity football player and wrestler -- drinking, but she twice found rum bottles hidden in her garage when he was 17 and suspected they were his. The first one she threw away. The second, she left.

"My reasoning for leaving the second bottle there was that all of the kids are doing it, and I did it growing up," Taylor, 52, said.

"If I could go back, I would make it absolutely clear that I didn't want him drinking at all -- that he was underage, that it is not legal," she added. "That's what I did with his younger brother [then 16] after Casey died. It was made perfectly clear to him that I didn't want him drinking at all until he was 21. And he didn't."

Taylor joined Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 2003 and is now the Wyoming chapter's spokeswoman. She said she now believes teens aren't ready to drink.

MADD supports the minimum drinking age of 21 years, citing numerous studies showing that it has reduced alcohol-related fatalities and injuries since it was federally mandated in the 1980s, and arguing that drinking can be harmful to teens' still-developing brains.

Laura Dean-Mooney, MADD's national president, said parents can prevent underage drinking by discussing rules and consequences often and early -- starting around fourth grade, when peer pressure starts to kick in. She said parents can find tips on how to encourage alcohol abstinence and set rules and consequences on the MADD-operated website ThePowerOfParents.org.

"The tricky thing with letting kids in their late teens drink is that you're not always going to be home every time they choose to drink. You're not always going to be there to take away the keys," she said when asked whether she could understand parents who argue that absolute prohibition isn't the way to go.

Sheri Reed, an editor with The Stir, a blog run by CafeMom about issues for mothers, says her readers give her a full range of reactions and perspectives when it comes to teens and alcohol.

Reed says the topic is important for her, in part because she's a mother of boys ages 7 and 3, and because she's a recovering alcoholic who started drinking in the eighth grade and has been sober for nine years.

The California resident has written that she has no intention of introducing alcohol to her children when they're teens. She does intend to talk to her kids about her experiences and let them know that alcohol isn't necessary for a fulfilled life.

She doesn't know yet what her exact plan will be beyond lots of talks. But she says she doesn't expect that she and her husband will be able to stop their children from trying alcohol before they're 21.

"I don't think that's a reality in this world," Reed, 39, said. "It's my hope that they just won't be insane."

As for Martha of Georgia, she says she generally discourages her 18-year-old from drinking and reminds him it's against the law outside her supervision at home. Putting him in school activities and encouraging him to study hard -- she says he's a straight-A student -- helps keep him out of trouble.

"He has a good grounding in what's healthy and what's not. That's what I taught my children -- how to live with balance," she said. "I've seen people go extreme in either direction [with alcohol], and I don't think either one is totally healthy."

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Woman, children make rare appearance in Gambino indictment

(News Terupdate) - New York's Gambino crime family might have hit a new low by allegedly introducing underage prostitution into its operations, authorities say, but just as shocking to some was the appearance of a female among the list of defendants in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Suzanne Porcelli, 43, was the only female among 14 reputed Gambino crime family members and associates indicted on charges including racketeering, murder, sex trafficking of a minor, extortion and drug trafficking. Thirteen defendants including Porcelli entered not guilty pleas on Tuesday, according to the U.S. attorney's office, and they are expected to appear Wednesday before a federal judge who has been appointed to the case.

"It's extremely rare to grab up a woman in an organized crime case because it's a male-oriented criminal society," said FBI special agent Richard Holko. "It's certainly unusual, but as you can see in the indictment, she allegedly committed a serious crime and will face those charges."

Fifteen FBI agents showed up at the door of the single mother's home in Brooklyn to arrest her at 6 a.m. Tuesday, said her lawyer, Vincent Romano. She was released on bond.

Porcelli's name appears only six times in the 60-page document detailing a litany of accusations against suspected members and associates of the Gambino crime family. The list runs the gamut, from murder to OxyContin trafficking to defrauding high-end restaurants with inflated invoices for meat orders.

Porcelli is charged with four counts in a sex trafficking ring involving some underaged girls, and not for charges of murder or RICO-related activity.

"It's a very unfortunate situation for her. Obviously she's not a member or associate of any crime family. She's charged in a very limited conduct in the indictment," Romano said. "I'd like to get discovery and see what the evidence is against her, who's allegedly cooperating with the government against her to see what they have to say and assess the situation."

However slight her alleged role, having a woman caught up in a underaged prostitution ring with the Gambino crime family marks a turn for the worse in organized crime, said Joe Coffey, a former commanding officer of the New York Police Department's organized crime unit.

"The mob as we know it historically holds very few things sacred, but they do hold women and children sacred," said Coffey.

"Women have been girlfriends and wives and mothers but never has there been any case where a female becomes an influential person in mob operations, because it's seen as men's work, something that women and children should be protected from and kept out of."

Porcelli's name appears alongside the likes of 69-year-old Daniel Marino, a longtime member and current Gambino family boss, according to court documents. She is also accused of working with alleged Gambino family soldier Thomas Orefice, who is accused of a "staggering crime spree" related to most of the criminal enterprises in the indictment.

Porcelli faces four charges, including sex trafficking and sex trafficking of a minor, for her role in an interstate sex trafficking ring in 2008 and 2009.

Orefice is accused of devising and executing the business plan for the prostitution ring, in which underage girls, including at least one 15-year-old, were offered up to paying customers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, New Jersey and Staten Island, according to court documents.

The defendants advertised their service on Craigslist and other websites, and had customers call a phone line operated by Porcelli to arrange appointments, the documents state.

"Orefice and the other defendants also made the young women available for sex to the players at regular poker games that Orefice and his crew ran."

Porcelli faces a potential life sentence on one count of sex trafficking of a minor.

Sex and drugs are nothing new to organized crime, says Coffey, but their expanding prominence within day-to-day operations reflects the weakening mores of the mafia and society.

"The mafia, as we know it today, is no longer what it was. Although they've always been ruthless, greedy, unlawful, murderous, they always had a certain amount of respect, i.e., for women and children," he said.

A law enforcement crackdown in the 1970s and 1980s targeting organized crime's leadership left a power vacuum that has been filled by leaders with a greater appetite for sex and drugs, he said.

"The mob, as we see it today, has lost all respect, lost all the historical culture that it was intended to have since 1931 and that's because they're becoming their own best customers within the drug culture."

Source : CNN

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