HHS HealthBeat (April 21, 2009)

Teens, TV and Depression

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

A study indicates that the more TV a teenager watches, the higher the risk that the teen will have symptoms of depression years later.

Brian Primack of the University of Pittsburgh bases that on data on more than 4,000 middle and high school students who didn’t have depression at the start. After seven years, the data showed that some did have signs of it.

And Primack says:

[Brian Primack speaks] ``For each additional hour of daily television exposure, there was an 8 percent increase in the odds of becoming depressed.’’

Primack can’t be sure if TV-watching fostered symptoms or if teens who developed symptoms wanted to watch more TV. But he says it’s a good idea to limit TV time.

The study in Archives of General Psychiatry was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April, 24 2009