'Ban TV for children' says top psychologist

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'Ban TV for children' says top psychologist

by Katy Holland Aug 31st 2010

Allowing children to watch television is 'the greatest unacknowledged health

scandal of our time' says a leading psychologist.

Dr Aric Sigman believes TV should be banned for toddlers and severely rationed

for children over the age of three, because their brains are undergoing massive

development and can be detrimentally affected, resulting in learning and

behavioural problems.

Dr Sigman will make a speech to members of the European Parliament today,

claiming that governments should be doing more to make parents aware of the

dangers of too much time in front of television or computer screens.

His work, along with studies by other researchers around the world, links TV and

computer time with problems including obesity, high cholesterol and blood

pressure, inattentiveness, declines in maths and reading, sleep disorders and

autism.

'Irrespective of what our children are watching or doing on the screen, a clear

relationship is emerging between daily hours of screen time and negative

medical, psychological, behavioural and educational consequences,' Dr Sigman

says in his speech.

'The more hours per day, the more likely the risk of these negative consequences

and the greater their intensity.'

Dr Sigman believes that, from the ages of three to 12, children should be

limited to an hour a day, rising to an hour and a half for teenagers. He also

says that TVs and computers should be kept out of children's bedrooms until the

age of 15.

Recent evidence suggests that some British children spend as much as seven and a

half hours a day in front of a screen – the equivalent of a full year of 24-hour

days by the age of seven.