Watching too much TV can lead to asthma

In the past, we've heard how watching television can make kids dumb, fat, smokers, and bad sleepers, and now a new study written in the Telegraph says watching TV for more than five hours a day puts kids at risk of becoming asthmatics too.

The conclusion comes after the Catholic University in Rome studied the lifestyles of over 20,000 six and seven-year olds who had very different activity levels and TV viewing schedules. Those who watched more television were obviously not as healthy as their counterparts who only watched an hour of television per day.

This is partly due to the fact that kids who sit for prolonged periods of time are not taking the necessary amount of deep breaths to regulate airways and maintain proper lung function. Instead their breathing becomes shallow, and their chances of developing asthma increases significantly.

I'm sure this applies to anyone who spends too much time in front of a screen. Maybe watching television wouldn't be so bad if most of us watched it while running on a treadmill, but since we don't, we should at least make an effort to go the gym or take a walk outside to balance things out a bit.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't blame the computer or the television for causing these type of health problems either. Those things have an off button, you know, and it's our sole responsibility to monitor how much time the kids spend in front of them.

Related:

Reasons why you should kick the TV out of your room