Kids and TV: Truth, myths may surprise parents

3. Educational videos make infants smarter. The names — such as Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby — suggest one thing, but the data suggest otherwise. According to a 2005 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, no program targeting children younger than 2 has demonstrated any educational benefit.

Evidence from studies my colleagues and I have done suggests that early viewing (under age 3) may be harmful to children's cognitive development. We found that children who watch TV before age 3 score worse on tests of letter and number recognition upon entering school than those who do not. And for each hour of television a child watches on average per day before age 3, the chances that child will have attention problems at age 7 increase by 10 percent. A 2005 University of Pennsylvania study found that even watching "Sesame Street" before age 3 delayed a child's ability to develop language skills.

4. Sitting around watching television — instead of playing outside — makes kids overweight. In fact, being a couch potato is not what causes obesity. Kids sit around to read, too, but no one suggests that reading causes obesity. A 1999 Stanford University experiment found that when elementary school children watched less television, they did lose excess weight; however, reducing their television time did not make them more active.

What that suggests is that television-watching itself — unlike other sedentary activities such as reading, block-building or working on art projects — encourages overeating. Snacking in front of the tube is a widespread habit (for kids as well as adults) and the barrage of junk food advertisements only heightens that temptation. About 70 percent of the ads children see on television are for food products, and virtually none of them are for healthy choices. A 2005 Harvard University study found that, on average, children eat about 170 more calories per day for each hour of television they watch, and all of those calories are derived from foods commonly advertised in television commercials.

5. Television helps kids get to sleep. The opposite is true. In a 2005 study of more than 2,000 children, my colleagues and I found that the more television children watch, the more likely they are to have irregular sleep and nap patterns. Allowing kids to watch television because they can't sleep is part of the problem, not the solution.

6. Kids watch too much television. Actually, the bigger problem is what they watch and how they watch it. In what some consider the halcyon days of television, families used to gather around a single centrally located set and watched high-quality, family-centered programming together.

Nowadays, the typical U.S. household has multiple television sets; family members (including young children) sit alone and watch programs that too often are violent and sexualized. When parents watch with their children, the value of the best television programs is enhanced — and the harm of negative programming can be curtailed.

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Dimitri A. Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Children's Hospital in Seattle, is coauthor of "The Elephant in the Living Room: Make Television Work for Your Kids" (Rodale). Author e-mail: dachris@u.washington.edu