Parents worry over their children spending too much time in front of a screen. This showed in the Australian Child Health Poll conducted by the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne coming from the 2000 adults who participated, ABC News Au reports this morning.
Excessive screen time or spending too much time on gadgets and electronic devices such as iPads, tablets, computers, and gaming consoles is considered their biggest health concern for their children. It also ranked higher than illegal drug use, alcohol and even cancer, when they asked parents to rate 29 childhood health issues.
58 percent of the participants ranked excessive screen time as their biggest health concern for their child, which is higher than the 55 percent who identified obesity and as well the 54 per cent who identified a lack of physical activity or settling in a sedentary lifestyle.
Dr. Anthea Rhodes, director of the Australian Child Health Poll, said that screen time has been linked to a number of health issues in children. "Research has shown that it is linked to sedentary behaviours which can lead to obesity. There is a lot of interplay with the modern lifestyle of children in our results," Dr. Rhodes explained. She also said that the purpose of the poll is to provide a voice to the public's concerns about lifestyle issues and the impact they were having on childhood health.
Meanwhile, a study conducted by the Cancer Council and National Heart Foundation found that teenagers tend to spend too much time on their phones, computers and tablets. The study involved 9000 secondary school students and it has been found that 77 percent of students were spending more than two hours a day on electronic devices for entertainment and leisure, while only 24 per cent were able to achieve 60 minutes or more of the recommended daily exercise.
What also concerns Dr. Rhodes is that there is no clear pathway for health care nowadays because they are non-traditional problems.
Now the big question is, how will parents be able to seek help in addressing these health concerns brought by technology.
