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Turn off TV, girls - or risk early puberty

	Patrick Foster

1	Watching too much television as a
	child may trigger serious health problems
	such as autism and obesity, and in girls
	the early onset of puberty, a scientist has
	claimed.

2	Writing in the journal Biologist,		Research has shown that melatonin
	Dr Aric Sigman says that the average		affects puberty in females more than
	six-year-old child in Britain will have		males. “Animal studies have shown
	already spent a year watching		that low melatonin levels have an
	television, and claims that the simple		important role in promoting an early
	act of staring at a bright television		onset of puberty,” Dr Sigman says.
	screen, regardless of a programme’s		Girls have been reaching puberty
	content, can damage a child’s health.		earlier since the 1950s, which previous
			research had blamed on an average
3	Dr Sigman identified 15 negative		increase in female weight, but he
	effects that, he says, television can have		claims that lower melatonin levels may
	on youngsters, ranging from shortsightedness		be another cause.
	and diabetes to premature
	puberty and autism. “Given the evidence,	5	Dr Sigman, an esteemed member
	it would be sensible to cordon off the		of the Institute of Biology and
	early years of child development as a time		associate fellow of the British
	when screen media is excluded and then		Psychological Society, says that
	introduced judiciously as the child		watching television also damages sleep
	matures. To allow children to continue to		patterns, causes over-eating and
	watch this much screen media is an		increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
	abdication of parental responsibility.		“Television may induce us to eat more
	Truly hands-off parenting,” he writes.		[by] causing our brain to monitor
			external non-food cues -- the television
4	Dr Sigman’s report, which is based		screen -- as opposed to internal food
	on his analysis of 35 scientific studies,		cues telling us that we have stuffed
	claims that television viewing affects		ourselves and can stop eating.” Low
	levels of melatonin, a hormone linked		attention spans and poor educational
	to when puberty occurs in girls.		achievement could also be linked to
	Melatonin levels increase in the		television viewing habits.
	evening, at the onset of darkness, but
	staring into a bright screen during this
	period hinders its production.		The Times

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