Daily HealthBeat Tip - May 08, 2007

A video childhood

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

We live in a sea of media from babyhood. Some babies even watch TV in their bedroom.

Researcher Elizabeth Vandewater of the University of Texas at Austin reviewed a survey of more than 1,000 parents. Her study in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ journal, Pediatrics, was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Almost one fifth of kids from six months to two-year-olds, and more than a third of three- to six-year-olds, had a TV in the bedroom.

Vandewater says it’s hard to tell if kids get any benefit:

``Much like we have found that there are positive educational outcomes related to good educational programming, there may be positive educational outcomes that are the result of products aimed at young children with high-quality curricula. We just don’t know.’’ (12 seconds)

She says parents should consider educational claims just marketing.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

Last revised: September, 17 2007