August 4th, 1999
Pediatrics Group Offers Tough Rules for Telelvision
By Lawrie Mifflin
New York Times
Children under 2 years old should not watch television, older children should
not have television sets in their bedrooms and pediatricians should have parents
fill out a "media history," along with a medical history, on office
visits, according to recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Saying television viewing can affect the mental, social and physical health
of young people, the academy for the first time has laid out a plan for how
pediatricians and parents can better manage children’s use of television.
"As pediatricians," said Dr. Marjorie Hogan, the lead author of the
report, "we are taking all the research concerns into account and trying
to raise the bar a bit, as suggestions for optimal parenting." The report
appears in the August issue of Pediatrics magazine, published on Monday.
No reliable research has been done on how television viewing affects children
younger than 2, Dr. Hogan said. But the academy based its recommendations for
such children on knowledge of what babies need for proper brain development
—notably close-up interaction with older people—and the common-sense notion
that if they are watching television, babies are not getting those other essential
stimuli.
Violence in movies and television has been linked to aggressive behavior in
young people in studies by the American Medical Association, the American Psychological
Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the
National Institute of Mental Health.
So while the academy may appear to be venturing into sociological territory
with little direct connection to medical health issues, the study’s authors
say the influence of mass media is a public health concern.
"For example, media violence," said Dr. Miriam Bar-on, chairwoman
of the academy’s committee on public education, which wrote the policy. "A
bullet in the body is a physical health issue. Children who spend a lot of time
in front of the TV set tend to gain weight; obesity is a physical health issue."
The academy is distributing to its members a sample "media history"
checklist for their young patients. It includes questions about movies, video
and computer games, music videos and the Internet, as well as about the radio
and books.
Also available to the 55,000 members are brochures with suggestions about how
to guide families toward positive uses of media, including critical discussion
of what they watch. The academy suggests that televisions and computers not
be kept in children’s bedrooms but in common rooms, where parents can monitor
children’s use of them.
Many parents interviewed yesterday agreed that television’s influence was a
proper concern for pediatricians, but said it was unrealistic to set arbitrary
limits, and unnecessary for doctors to intervene unless a child already had
social or emotional problems that might be related to media exposure.
Lari Mills of Nashville, who has an 8-month-old baby as well as a 7-year-old
and a 9-year-old, said: "I understand the theory, but practically I think
it’s not very do-able. The little one is often around the TV when the older
ones are watching, but he’s not really watching it."
In Chicago, Valerie Barney said her 2-year-old son watched "Barney"
and "The Teletubbies" on PBS, and she saw no harm in it as long as
an adult was watching with him.
"He interacts very well with the TV," Ms. Barney said. "He sees
someone fall down, he falls down."
"Teletubbies," a British import on PBS featuring a group of cooing,
brightly colored creatures who babble baby talk, is the only show on American
television specifically made for children under 3. It was developed by a producer
for educational television and a speech pathologist; nonetheless, many pediatricians
see little merit in it.
John F. Wilson, senior vice president for programming for PBS, said: "We
don’t put it on in order to attract a younger and younger audience.
But we know from research that there is an audience of children under 2 watching
television, for better or for worse, and at least we have something on the air
that is developmentally appropriate for them."
Wilson said many working parents might be helped by "taking this information
to whoever is watching their child during the day, and letting them know they
should find something else to do besides watch TV."
Brown Johnson, senior vice president for Nick Jr., the preschool programming
portion of the children’s network Nickelodeon, said she favored any policy that
encouraged parents to spend time with children.
"Television or videos will be used in some form," Ms. Johnson said,
"to give parents a break to make dinner or whatever, so I’m not sure it’s
realistic to say no television ever. But if the A.A.P. has to make this kind
of a declaration to have people really sit up and listen, that’s fine."
The academy spent more than two years developing the latest policy statement,
which was approved by its board of directors in May, but it has been involved
in research and communications about media influences on children for much longer.
In 1990, it issued a recommendation that children not watch more than one to
two hours of "quality" television a day.
In 1997, it began a "Media Matters" campaign to educate pediatricians
and the public about how media can influence children, positively as well as
negatively.
Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonprofit
research group in Washington, agreed that the delineating of specific recommendations
for pediatricians to give parents was a new step.
"This is part of a drive by health professionals to view certain social
problems as public health problems," Lichter said, noting also the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention’s recent efforts to treat gun use as a public
health issue.
"It’s not a bad thing for health professionals to remind parents that they
need to be aware of the risks," he said.
"If you’re worried about what your kid eats, you should worry about what
your kid’s watching."