New research, released in the September/October 2012 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, suggests that excess weight gain among adolescents could be prevented by reducing the amount of television they view.

The finding came from a team of experts from the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health Obesity Prevention Center who conducted a one-year community-based randomized trial that enrolled 153 and 72 adolescents from the same households.

The researchers held 6 face-to-face group meetings, set up 12 home-based activities, and sent monthly newsletters. With each household’s permission, the team attached a “TV Allowance” to every television in each house for them to follow for one year.

After recording the amount of TV viewed, diet, and physical activity levels before and after the intervention, results showed that there was a clear association among adolescents between a decrease in TV hours and reduced weight gain over one year. However, TV hours did not have any significant impact on weight gain in adults.

The findings imply that when adolescents watch a great deal of television they have a risk for excess weight gain. In order to help young people maintain a healthy body weight and live a healthy lifestyle, parents should limit their adolescent’s television viewing.

Being overweight in adolescence causes many health problems, while increasing the risk of:

Finding the causes for weight gain are especially important in this population because a total of 31% of U.S. kids and adolescents are overweight or obese, according to national survey data (NHANES) 2003-2006.

Simone A. French, Ph.D., lead author of this study and the Director of the University of Minnesota’s Obesity Prevention Center, explained:

“We tried to intervene on behaviors that are related to energy balance, such as television viewing, sugar-sweetened beverage intake, physical activity, and consumption of packaged convenience foods. Although the individual contribution of each of these behaviors to excess weight gain and obesity may be small, it is important to examine their possible role individually and together in promoting excess weight gain. Associations between these behaviors and risk for excess weight gain may differ among adults and adolescents because of their different physical and social developmental stages.”

The authors hope that this research will show parents that reducing TV hours is an effective weight gain prevention strategy that they can use by changing the home environment and their normal amounts of television viewing.

Written by Sarah Glynn