The finding, based on a study of 709 children, adds to the growing body of evidence linking sedentary lifestyles and childhood obesity and supports recommendations endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) regarding physical activity and screen time.
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The AAP has called for the following:
- Limiting media time such as TV viewing and video game playing to two hours a day
- Boys should take a least 11,000 steps daily
- Girls should take at least 13,000 steps a day
Kelly Laurson and colleagues from Iowa State University and the National Institute on Media and the Family evaluated the AAP's recommendations on children aged 7 to 12 to see how a combination of too much screen time and too little exercise influenced their odds of being overweight.
The children answered questions about the time spent watching TV and playing video games and wore pedometers to track the number of steps they took each day. Some children met some of the AAP recommendations, but few met both.
Laurson's team also took body mass index (BMI) measurements of each child, which revealed that about one out of five children was overweight. Fewer than half met recommendations for physical activity measured by a pedometer, and 27% of boys and 35% girls met the screen time limit.
"Children not meeting the physical activity or exceeding the screen time recommendations were 3-4 times more likely to be overweight than those complying with both recommendations," Laurson says in a news release.
Among those meeting both recommendations:
- 10% of boys were overweight
- 20% of girls were overweight
Among those who did not meet either recommendation:
- 35% of boys were overweight
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More than 12.5 million American children and adolescents are overweight. Children who are overweight and obese are at risk for other conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and asthma.