HEALTH ISSUE: It's Official

It's official: The

idiot box makes

kids fat & dumb

London: Parents now have science to back them up when they say. "turn off the TV and do your homework" for researchers claim that watching the idiot box could make children less intelligent and overweight.

          A new study has found that the more children watch television, the more likely they are to eat junk food, perform badly in mathematics and be bullied by peers as they grew up. And, the negative effect of watching TV could be worse in case of two-year toddlers, the study found.

         For the study, the researchers asked parents of 1,314 children born in the Canadian state of Quebec in 1997 and 1998 to report how much television their offspring watched aged two-and-a-half.

        Schoolteachers then assessed their academic, psychosocial and health habits when they reached the age of ten. The study found that for every extra hour of TV watched a week, two-year-olds suffered a 6% decrease in performance in maths, a seven per cent decrease in classroom engagement and a 10% increase in "victimisation" by peers the 'Daily Mail' reported.

         Every extra hour watching TV also corresponded with 9% less exercise, consumption of 10% more snacks, and a 5% rise in body mass index, the findings have revealed.

         "Although we expected the impact of early TV viewing to disappear after seven-and-a-half years of childhood, the fact that negative outcomes remained is quite daunting.

         "Our findings make a compelling public health argument against excessive viewing in early childhood..., "the study's lead author Linda Pagani of Montreal University was quoted by the British newspaper as saying.