Screen time in relation to Nutrient Intake in Children and Adolescents

Home science

Screen time has risen dramatically in the technological age. The formation of long-lasting, healthy food and activity habits begins during adolescence. As excessive time spent on screens and technological devices usage is linked to a number of health issues, including obesity and overweight, changes in blood sugar and cholesterol levels, poor academic performance, decreased social interaction and lower levels of physical activity and has become a concerning factor that has impacted children and the adolescent population. Additionally, screen usage has been frequently linked to negative traits including poor eating patterns. The majority of studies, however, have analyzed the relationship between each variable of dietary intake, physical activity and screen time and device usage separately and in specified age groups. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against introducing infants to digital devices throughout their first year of life. As per the guidelines observed, children between the ages of 2 and 5 should not spend more than one hour on screens daily. Infants and young children should avoid electronic device use and be restricted to 30 minutes per day for preschoolers; 60 minutes per day for primary schoolers; and 120 minutes per day for Teenagers. Additionally, there are few nationally representative studies about children that have examined how more screen usage affects lifestyle variables. Literature has reported that longer self-reported screen time has been closely linked to eating an unhealthy diet. This study has focused on analyzing the relationship between duration of screen time, usage of technological devices with dietary patterns and food consumption among children and adolescents along with physical activity. In this study, 200 participants (both boys and girls from the age group 8-17 years) were included. Participants were administered a questionnaire tool that included questions related to screen time, dietary patterns measured with a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire and Physical Activity and Sleep habit questions. The results indicated that screen time usage for mobile was noted to be the highest at 65.5% followed by television use at 42.5% among study participants. Fast food consumption, including chips/wafers (61%) in boys (39%) in girls, Frankie rolls in boys (54.3%) and, in girls (45.7%) was found to be high. Older children were observed to have unhealthy eating habits as consumption of processed high-fat, salt and sugar foods while attending college and school. The consumption of chocolate was also (50%) in both boys and girls. Girls reported higher consumption of sweet mithais (Indian sweets) (63%) as compared to boys (37%). It was observed that there was a positive association between screen time and dietary habits.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.