The amount of television that infants and their parents watched influenced children's viewing habits when they got older

Yu Chan Chiu, Yi Fan Li, Wen Chi Wu, Tung Liang Chiang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

26 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Aim: Excessive television (TV) exposure has negative impacts on a child's development, health and behaviour. This study examined the under-researched area of what impact infant and parental TV viewing during a child's infancy had on the child's later viewing habits. Methods: Data on 18 577 babies born in 2005 were collected from the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study, a prospective longitudinal study of a nationally representative cohort. Group-based trajectory analysis was conducted to identify childhood TV viewing trajectories at 18, 36 and 66 months of age. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the influence of parents’ TV behaviour on their children's TV viewing trajectories. Results: The percentage of children falling into the TV viewing trajectories that were identified were low (20%), increasing (46.5%) and high (33.5%). The child's TV viewing trajectory was significantly associated with the child's sex, parent's monthly household income, child's day care arrangements, maternal and paternal education, maternal and paternal TV viewing time and whether the child's TV viewing time was restricted. Conclusion: The amount of TV that children watched when they were older was associated with a range of factors, and the results particularly highlight the need to restrict child and parental viewing time in infancy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)984-990
Number of pages7
JournalActa Paediatrica, International Journal of Paediatrics
Volume106
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017 Jun
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Child development
  • Infancy
  • Parenting
  • Taiwan
  • Television viewing trajectory

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health

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