fat chance

Years and years ago – in an earlier incarnation on 3AW – I made the comment that it seemed to me that Aussie kids were reading less because of spending so much time glued to the television.

And this was before all the electronic games and e-mails and text messages.

A young mother called in on talkback and I said I was talking rubbish. Her children were still voracious readers. Well maybe they were. But obviously children are not now.

As I have said before, when we were kids, we played outside from the time we got home from school until Mum called us for dinner. And often, in summer, we’d head outside after tea and play some more.

We couldn’t afford junk food. There was no local McDonald’s. And our weekly food sin was deep fried fish and chips on a Friday night.

I raise the issue again today for several reasons. One is the growing debate on obesity. Especially obese children who are likely to become obese adults.

And the other reason is an extensive survey out of Germany  that appears in The Age under the headline:  Fat, lazy, stupid and sad. Children’s TV habits paint a bleak picture. That’ll do heaps for youngster’s self-esteem.

A Criminological Institute surveyed 23,000 children.  And the survey found that when schoolchildren are given unfettered exposure to TV, computer games, and the Internet, it produces kids who are fatter, lazier, , sad and unhealthy and less likely to do well at school than those who have their leisure time policed.

One expert said, and this makes sense, that: “TVs and computers literally steal meaningful time for sport, play and fun from their lives”.  In one city they found that ten-year-old children watched three hours of TV a day and the performance of these children at school was noticeably worse than those who didn’t.

So I guess I was right all those years ago. And, as I have also said before, there is a simple solution to this. Don’t let your kids have TVs and computers in their bedrooms with the door closed. Put it in a family room so you can not only tell  how long they are watching – but what they are watching.

And encourage them to get outside and play in the fresh air. Sounds old-fashioned. But there are more fat Australian children now than there have ever been.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005