TV itself may not be fattening, but turning it off for even a few hours a day can keep couch spuds from growing into overweight potatoes, a new study suggests. Reducing television-watching by children already has the support of Surgeon General David Satcher, who urged parents last month to turn off the tube as a way of preventing rising obesity nationwide. The government says a third of U.S. adults are overweight. At the end of the school year, the youngsters had gained about two pounds less on average than a matched set of their peers who kept up their normal tube-watching habits.
Obesity is one of the hardest conditions to prevent and treat.
Programs aimed at keeping people from smoking, drinking and taking drugs have far higher success rates than those aimed at keeping people fit and slim, Robinson said. At the same time, TV-watching in the United States remains high, with the average child younger than 11 watching nearly 20 hours per week. Reducing the amount of television our children watch is one way to encourage more healthful activity. Copyright 1999 by The Associated Press Information about privacy policy , and terms of use .