February 4, 2012  Print Email | Telly gives you asthma, apparently
Turn on, tune in, drop gasping to the floor
Posted by The News staff at 12:12 PM GMT on Mar 03, 2009 | IN A study that could have been tailor-made for the popular press, researchers reckon that young children who watch lots of television each day could be at a greater risk of developing asthma.
The findings are made in a long-term investigation by British doctors among more than 3,000 children, whose respiratory health has been monitored since birth in 1991 and 1992.
In a paper published in the specialist journal Thorax, the investigators looked into an increase in asthma that was noticeable between the ages of three and a half and 11 and a half. Among children who did not have any asthmatic symptoms at the earlier age, six per cent developed them eight years later.
Especially prominent was the increase among children who, according to their parents, watched television for two hours or more each day. In this group, the risk of developing asthma by 11 and a half was nearly twice that of counterparts who watched less than two hours. Still pretty small, of course, but hey, it's a finding.
But does it mean that children who watch a lot of television are likely to become asthmatic as a result? Or, just possibly, might it be the case that asthmatic children don't particularly relish long-distance running, say, and are more likely to spend time in front of the box?
In any case, asthma is also associated with poverty, though factors such as poor housing, pollution and obesity. Maybe, just maybe, poor people watch more television, because it's cheap. X
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