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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This report does pull together a large number of studies and
concludes media consumption is linked to a range of problems among youth. </span></font></p>
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<h2><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Report
Ties Children's Use of Media to Their Health </span></font></b></h2>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
National Institutes of Health and a nonprofit advocacy group, Common Sense
Media, have another reason for President-elect Barack Obama to keep urging
parents to “turn off the TV.”</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In what
researchers call the first report of its kind, a review of 173 studies about
the effects of media consumption on children asserts that a strong correlation
exists between greater exposure and adverse health outcomes.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“Coach
potato does, unfortunately, sum it up pretty well,” said Ezekiel J.
Emanuel, chairman of the bioethics department at the institutes’ clinical
center, one of the study’s five reviewers.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
report should compel lawmakers to underwrite media education efforts and public
service advertising campaigns and should motivate the entertainment industry to
be more “responsible and responsive,” said Jim Steyer, the chief
executive of Common Sense Media, which helped to finance the study.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>“The
research is clear that exposure to media has a variety of negative health
impacts on children and teens,” he said.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Dr.
Emanuel, Mr. Steyer and others plan to brief Washington policy makers on the
study on Tuesday. Joined by researchers at Yale University and California
Pacific Medical Center, Dr. Emanuel’s team analyzed almost 1,800 studies
conducted since 1980 and identified 173 that met the criteria the researchers
set.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In a
clear majority of those studies more time with television, films, video games,
magazines, music and the Internet was linked to rises in childhood obesity,
tobacco use and sexual behavior. A majority also showed strong correlations
— what the researchers deemed “statistically significant
associations” — with drug and alcohol use and low academic
achievement.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
evidence was somewhat less indicative of a relationship between media exposure
and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, the seventh health outcome that
was studied.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Dr.
Emanuel, whose brother, Rahm, is the president-elect’s chief of staff,
said he was surprised by how lopsided the findings were. “We found very
few studies that had any positive association” for children’s
health, he said.</span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Researchers
sought to look at the health effects of a wide array of media and distill 30
years of research into a simple message. “The average parent doesn’t
understand that if you plop your kids down in front of the TV or the computer
for five hours a day, it can change their brain development, it can make them
fat, and it can lead them to get involved in risky sexual activity at a young
age,” Mr. Steyer said.</span></font></p>
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