Televisions in the bedrooms of racial/ethnic minority children: how did they get there and how do we get them out?
The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of TVs in the bedrooms of an urban, largely racial/ethnic minority population of children and parents' reasons for putting the TV in their child's room. The authors surveyed 200 parents of children age 2 to 13 years in a primary care clinic; 57% of the children were non-Hispanic black, 33% were Hispanic. Sixty-seven percent of all children had a TV in the room where they slept; high rates of TVs were present in bedrooms of black (70%) and Hispanic (74%) children compared with white children (22%). The top 3 reasons parents cited for putting a TV in the room where their child sleeps were (a) to keep the child occupied so that the parent could do other things around the house, ( b) to help the child sleep, and (c) to free up the other TVs so that other family members could watch their shows.
Obesity Prevention Program, Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. Elsie_Taveras@ hphc.org
Elsie M
EM
Taveras
Katherine H
KH
Hohman
Sarah
S
Price
Steven L
SL
Gortmaker
Kendrin
K
Sonneville
D000293:Adolescent; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001900:Boston / Q000453:epidemiology; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000208:ethnology*; D010290:Parents; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013690:Television / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data