Abstract
Children’s screen-viewing behavior is influenced by parents’ own screen-viewing hours and the parental rules set for screen-viewing time. However, whether childhood obesity is associated with these three factors has not been widely investigated in Chinese populations. We examined the relationships between parental rules, parental screen-viewing, child screen-viewing and child overweight. Questionnaires were distributed to 1300 parents who had children studying in two elementary schools in an eastern Taiwanese City (Yi-Lan). We collected the data (the final response rate was 77.7%) on children’s health states, the length of screen-viewing time, and whether parental rules of screen-viewing time have been set (n = 1005). Models using structural equation modeling, with controlling of age, gender, and physical activity of the participants, were carried out, to examine the mediated effect of child screen-viewing. The results of model testing showed that child screen-viewing could be a mediator in the associations between parental rule and child overweight (parental rule: coefficient = −0.18, p < 0.001); and between parent screen-viewing and child overweight (parent screen-viewing: coefficient = 0.072, p < 0.001). These findings suggested that parental factors (rules and little screen viewing time) effectively decreased the level of children’s screen-viewing time, and the child screen-viewing time could mediate the association between parental factors and child overweight in the Chinese population.
Highlights
Nowadays, increasing screen viewing time for children has lowered the amount of physical activity and increased sedentary behaviors for children
In the series of models that tested for the mediated effect of child screen-viewing, Model 1 showed that both parental rule
X2 = −1.04, p both factors were correlating to child screen-viewing in Model 2
Summary
Nowadays, increasing screen viewing time for children has lowered the amount of physical activity and increased sedentary behaviors for children. This phenomenon has been found in studies conducted across countries (e.g., the United States, Norway, France, Australia and Israel) in children aged between 5 and 18 years old [1,2,3,4]. Based on a study observing American children aged 6 to 11 years old, screen viewing time is defined as a derived noun, describing the length of time engaged in sedentary behaviors, focusing on viewing the screens of electronic devices [2]. Public Health 2020, 17, 1878; doi:10.3390/ijerph17061878 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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