Demographic differences in the relationship between parents' television reduction behaviors and children's viewing time

Obesity continues to be a major public health concern for America's children, with obesity rates for preschoolers tripling in the past 30 years and quadrupling for children aged 6 to 11. Television viewing has been shown to have a small, but significant association with childhood overweight. While research is ongoing to understand the pathways from television to overweight, the Surgeon General recommends that parents limit children's TV viewing to two hours per day. Previous research has highlighted parental behaviors that could result in decreased television viewing at home. These include: (1) no TV in a child's bedroom, (2) no background TV, (3) no TV during meals, and (4) no TV the hour before sleeping. While all should be associated with decreased viewing, it is unclear whether and how these associations may differ across demographic factors (i.e. child age, parent education, child race, family income). Using cross-sectional data from a random sample of 360 parents of children aged 3-12 living in a large urban city, we confirmed a significant association between each behavior and reduced viewing. Interestingly, when investigating moderation, only one behavior maintained a consistent association with reduced viewing across all demographic variables – no television the hour before sleeping. As children's poor sleep has been linked to overweight, this finding identifies a modifiable behavior that may be used to counter childhood overweight.