APRIL 2011 - Volume CII

Television Viewing and Health Behaviour of Children in south India

Research Article

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ABSTRACT


Health behaviours of early childhood are linked to health-related problems later in life. Television is a powerful influence in the lives of most children. Children__ampersandsignmiddot;s televisionviewing habits have been reported to be associated with a variety of significant behavioural consequences, including obesity and poor eating habits, decreased physical activity and physical fitness, and impaired school performance. An association between children__ampersandsignmiddot;s exposure to violent images on television and subsequent aggressive behaviour also has been documented repeatedly in the literature. Extended and frequent television viewing also has been shown to decrease the time and opportunity available for social interaction within the family (Os et al, 1999).

Children aged 8-18 years spend more time in front of the computer, that is 6.5 hours daily in front of television, computer and video games. More than half of television viewers in India today are children below 15 years (Sudha, 2007). The role television plays on health behaviour of children especially in India is unexplored. Thus the present study aims to examine the television viewing pattern among school children of 10 - 16 years of age and the influence of TV viewing on health behaviour of children.

The objectives of the study were: (1) to assess the television viewing pattern of school children, (2)to assess the health behaviours of school children, (3) find the relationship between television viewing pattern and health behaviour of school children, and (4) to find the association between television viewing, health behaviour of children and demographic variables.

Hypotheses

HI: There will be a significant negative relationship between the duration of television viewing during week days and health behaviour of children at 0.01 level of significance.

H2: There will be a significant negative relationship between duration of television viewing during weekend and health behaviour of children.

H3: There will be a significant association between duration of television viewing and selected demographic variables

The study was based on Cox__ampersandsignmiddot;s interaction model of client health behaviour. A cross-sectional design was adopted. The present study was conducted at selected high schools of Udupi District. The institution was selected on the basis of convenience and approachability.

Participants:& The study population identified was children between 12 -16 years of age attending regular academic programme. A total of 142 children participated in the study. The children who had television at home were included by purposive sampling.

Data Collection : Following instruments were developed by the investigator to collect the data.

Questionnaire 1 : Demographic proforma

Questionnaire 2 : Questionnaire to assess the television viewing pattern of the children.

Questionnaire 3 : Questionnaire to assess the health behaviour of the children.

The demographic proforma included the information on identification of the children, age, gender, religion and type of family. Questionnaire to assess the television viewing pattern of the children contained items related to duration of television viewing, type of programmes and the TV programmes influencing the child most.

Questionnaire to assess the health behaviour of the children contained items related to healthy behaviour of the children. The areas included dietary habits, personal health and spiritual health. The content validity of the tool was established by experts__ampersandsignmiddot; agreement. To ensure reliability, the tools were administered to 20 children. Reliability coefficient was established by test retest method and was calculated by Pearson__ampersandsignmiddot;s product moment correlation formula. The reliability of the Questionnaire 2 was 0.82 and that of Questionnaire 3 was 0.89. Thus the tools were found to be reliable.

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