When the television comes on at mealtime, chances that children will be well nourished grow dim. So suggests a team of nutritionists at Tufts University, authors of a study recently published in Pediatrics. In their study of ninety-one parent-child pairs from suburbs adjacent to Washington, D.C., the Tufts scholars uncovered a clearly inverse relationship between mealtime television viewing and good nutrition for children. That is, meals eaten around the TV were likely to be deficient in nutrients children need, and likely to be high in foods of dubious nutritional value.
"Children from families with television on during 2 or more meals per day," report the Tufts scholars, "consumed grains, fruit, green and yellow vegetables, potatoes, beans, and nuts less frequently than did children from families in which the television was either not on at meals or was on only for one meal." On the other hand, the researchers found that, compared to families who did not generally make TV part of their meal hour, familieswith a mealtime TV habit consumed more soda and more "pizza/salty snacks." Statistical analysis of the meals consumed by the TV watchers also established a "tendency toward higher fat." Consequently, children from households where television viewing was a regular part of the dinner hour "derived less energy from carbohydrate and more from total fat and saturated fat than did other children." Remarkably, "children from high television families...consumed twice as much caffeine as children from low television families."
What kind of family is overdosing on television and junk food while skimping on good nutrition? According to the authors of this new study, "Televisions were more likely to be on during meals in households with lower incomes, less educated mothers, or single parents."
Besides the retreat from marriage, the Tufts researchers implicate another social development in households in which television viewing takes priority over good nutrition: "Television's role in contemporary American food culture," they remark," is intricately linked to the entry of women into the paid labor force." The movement of women into paid employment has naturally meant "reduced time spent cooking," causing many families to adopt "behaviors that minimize the work of feeding children." Such families typically pay attention to "television advertising and prime time shows [which] promote and model the use of ready-to-eat cereals, snacks, convenience foods, shortcuts for home meal preparation or ready made sauces, and fast foods."
In a nation where the likelihood that a mother will have a husband is decreasing, and the likelihood that she will have a job has been increasing, pizza makers and TV advertisers have prospered, while America's green grocers have lost out--though perhaps not as much as the country's poorly nourished children.
