title: Relationship between parental estimate and an objective measure of child television watching.
abstract: Many young children have televisions in their bedrooms, which may influence the relationship between parental estimate and objective measures of child television usage/week. Parental estimates of child television time of eighty 4-7 year old children (6.0 +/- 1.2 years) at the 75th BMI percentile or greater (90.8 +/- 6.8 BMI percentile) were compared to an objective measure of television time obtained from TV Allowance devices attached to every television in the home over a three week period. Results showed that parents overestimate their child's television time compared to an objective measure when no television is present in the bedroom by 4 hours/week (25.4 +/- 11.5 vs. 21.4 +/- 9.1) in comparison to underestimating television time by over 3 hours/week (26.5 +/- 17.2 vs. 29.8 +/- 14.4) when the child has a television in their bedroom (p = 0.02). Children with a television in their bedroom spend more objectively measured hours in television time than children without a television in their bedroom (29.8 +/- 14.2 versus 21.4 +/- 9.1, p = 0.003). Research on child television watching should take into account television watching in bedrooms, since it may not be adequately assessed by parental estimates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York, Farber Hall; Room G56; 3435 Main Street; Buffalo, NY 14214, USA. jaroni@buffalo.edu
authors.forename: Jodie L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: Dana D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Winiewicz
authors.forename: Janene H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Fuerch
authors.forename: James N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Roemmich
authors.forename: Leonard H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Epstein