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TV Viewing Linked to Obesity and Violence, Pitt Public Health Determines in Two Separate Studies


People with hostile personality traits who watch more television than their peers may be at a greater risk for injury, potentially because they are more susceptible to the influence of television on violence and risk-taking behaviors, aUniversity of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health analysis discovered.
The research, published online in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion, suggests that a reduction in television viewing and content rating systems geared not just to age, but also personality traits, may reduce injury risk.
“Television viewing is very pervasive, with televisions in almost 99 percent of American households. And injuries cause more than half the deaths among people ages 1 through 44. This means that even modest reductions in television viewing, particularly among people predisposed to hostility, could have major positive outcomes for public health,” said lead author Anthony Fabio, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health.
Dr. Fabio and his colleagues analyzed data from 4,196 adults recruited from Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Minneapolis, and Oakland, Calif., who participated in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. For 15 years starting in 1990, the participants periodically reported their television viewing habits and completed in-depth questionnaires to assess their personality traits. The researchers also recorded all injuries requiring hospitalization.
As the amount of television viewing increased, so did the risk of injuries in the next five years. Notably, this relationship risk was greater for those in the “high hostility” group, which was determined by a scientific questionnaire. For example, for high-hostile individuals, watching more TV at year five was associated with 40 percent higher odds of injury at year 10. Additionally, watching more TV at year 15 was associated with a doubling in the odds of injury at year 20. This association did not occur in individuals with less hostile personalities.
Dr. Fabio and his team point to several research-backed explanations for why increased television watching may be responsible for such a pronounced increase in injuries among people predisposed to hostility, including that:
  • People often imitate new behaviors that they witness, leading them to participate in more high-risk behaviors if they watch more television.
  • Media violence and high-risk activities increase psychological arousal, intensifying subsequent behavior, such as aggressive risk-taking or impulsivity.
  • Images on television may desensitize people to violence or risk-taking.
“Prevention programs should target both the content of television programs and the amount of time people spend watching television,” said Dr. Fabio. “In addition, future studies should be conducted to determine the impact of modifying television viewing habits, particularly in relation to the personality traits of viewers.”

Watching More TV as a Young Adult Predicts Obesity
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 31, 2015 – The more hours young adults spend watching television each day, the greater the likelihood that they’ll have a higher body mass index and bigger waist circumference, a 15-year analysis by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health revealed. 
The association did not hold in later years, indicating that young adulthood is an important time to intervene and promote less television viewing, according to the research published online in the journal SAGE Open.
“We were quite surprised to find that television viewing was associated with subsequent obesity for young adults, but not for the middle-aged,” said lead author Anthony Fabio, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. “This suggests that middle-aged adults may differ from young adults in how they respond to the influence of TV viewing.”
Dr. Fabio and his colleagues analyzed data from 3,269 adults recruited from Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Minneapolis, and Oakland, Calif., who participated in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study. For 15 years starting in 1990, the participants reported their television viewing habits and had their waist circumference measured and their body mass index (a measure of weight and height that can indicate obesity) calculated every five years.
The more time participants spent watching television when they were approximately 30 years old, the more likely they were to be obese five years later, compared to their peers who spent less time in front of the television. The team did not have data on younger ages.
Dr. Fabio and his team suspect many potential reasons for the association, including that young adults may be more likely to snack during television viewing and consume unhealthy food due to their greater susceptibility to the seduction of junk food advertising on television. In support of that hypothesis, the CARDIA study also found that participants were more likely to eat healthier foods as they aged. 
The analysis found that 23 percent of the men and 20.6 percent of the women participating in the study watched four or more hours of television daily. Within that group of heavy TV watchers, 35.9 percent were black, and 8.6 percent were white; and 40.8 percent had a high school education or less, vs. 17.4 percent with an education beyond high school.
A lower family income and higher rates of smoking and drinking also were associated with more time spent watching television.
“Television viewing and obesity are both highly prevalent in many populations around the world,” said Dr. Fabio. “This means that even small reductions in television viewing could lead to vast public health improvements. Reducing sedentary time should be a healthy lifestyle guideline heavily promoted to the public. Our study indicates that the biggest bang for the buck would be in targeting young adults for interventions to reduce television viewing. Healthy lifestyle behaviors should start at early ages.”

Additional authors on this research are Chung-Yu Chen and Karen Matthews, Ph.D., of Pitt; Stephen Dearwater, M.S., of Jackson Memorial Hospital; David Jacobs, Ph.D., Darin Erickson, Ph.D., and Mark Pereira, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health; Carlos Iribarren, M.D., Ph.D., and Stephen Sidney, M.D., M.P.H., of Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
This research was funded by in part by research grants from theNational Institute on Aging (NIA) (R03AG028504) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U49-CE000764). The CARDIA study is supported by contracts HHSN268201300025C, HHSN268201300026C, HHSN268201300027C, HHSN268201300028C, HHSN268201300029C and HHSN268200900041C from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the Intramural Research Program of the NIA, and an intra-agency agreement between NIA and NHLBI (AG0005).


8/31/2015

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