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screen time

Excessive Screen Time Among Kids Now A Public Health Concern, Surgeon General Warns  

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Officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services recently collaborated with the surgeon general to issue an advisory warning about the harmful effects too much screen time can have on kids and teenagers. Getting stuck in an endless loop of social media scrolling, nonstop texting, and playing video games is officially a public health concern in America. 

The advisory, according to reports from CNN, warns that exposure to screens is becoming so normalized that it often begins before a child even turns one, and it only gets worse as they get older. 

The report stated that by adolescence, children may be spending more time on their electronic devices than sleeping or going to school. 

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By the time a child becomes a teenager, the amount of time spent on screens is an average of about four or more hours per day, and nearly half of the adolescents used for the advisory stated that they lose track of the amount of time they spend on their phones. 

The advisory also offers solutions and a “toolkit” to help parents identify harmful behaviors around screens and how to better limit screen time. One of the suggestions is a limitation of no screen time for a child under 18 months old, less than one hour per day for children under 6, and two hours per day for ages 6 to 18. 

A statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasizes that every family is different, but limitations should definitely be enforced, especially during the school week. 

“While screen use can have some benefits, the evidence of a range of risks to children’s overall mental and physical health is mounting,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in advisory.

“Social media is only one aspect of this ongoing screen time problem. Behavior patterns involving gaming, online gambling, and other forms of virtual interaction are emerging,” Kennedy said. 

“While this report uses ‘screen time’ as a widely understood shorthand, we want people to understand that we are referring to the entire digital ecosystem of apps, smartphones, tablets, chatbots, and other screen-associated devices and interfaces.”

“This Advisory is not only a warning, but also an invitation for all of us to enjoy a broader world, beyond the confines of screens.”

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The advisory also includes many “calls to action” to provide recommendations for kids, teenagers, parents, schools, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and technology companies. Some of these recommendations, according to CNN, include: 

  • Youth track their screen time, take breaks and create boundaries.
  • Children complete all other activities, such as homework or extracurriculars, before screen use.
  • Parents create a family media plan that covers who can use what screens, where, when, which content and for how long.
  • Schools implement cell phone policy restrictions and prioritize assigning work in books or on paper to limit screen use.
  • Healthcare providers include questions about screen use in annual well-child visits.
  • Researchers study long-term impacts from screens and evaluate school cell phone policy bans or restrictions.
  • Policymakers pursue laws that provide parents with controls, demand child safety and privacy protection.
  • Tech companies display warnings about harmful screen use and adhere to and enforce age minimums.

Surgeon general advisories are utilized as one of the government’s biggest and strongest statements in regards to public health. They are designed to draw attention and bring an immediate response based on its recommendations. 

Parents and families can also use the recently updated guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics to help place limits on devices for their growing children to best protect their mental and physical health. 

“The relationship between screens and children’s health remains complex,” said Dr. Courtney Blackwell, an associate professor of medical social sciences.

“That’s not to say on an individual level, some children in some contexts with some pre-existing conditions may experience some kind of challenges when it comes to screen use and mental health or physical health. But at the population level, the research is not definitive, I would say, to suggest screen time causes harm in and of itself,” Dr. Blackwell said.

Dr. Blackwell also doesn’t want families to panic over their children’s screentime in an ever-changing and evolving digital world. 

“There can be positive uses of screen media, like ‘Sesame Street,’ and some kids find social support online, and they use it to connect with peers with similar identities at a time when identity development is critical in adolescence,” she said. 

“So it’s not just how long kids are spending on screens but really how they’re using it and the context of that use.”

kids

Health Of US Kids Has Deteriorated Over The Past Two Decades, New Study Finds 

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According to a new study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the health of children growing up in America has deteriorated over the past 17 years. The study showed that US kids today are more likely to have obesity, chronic diseases, and mental health problems. 

The researchers findings in regards to the cause of this declining health among US children is nothing new, however, the information found was much more comprehensive than previous studies, providing a better understanding for parents and guardians. 

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“The surprising part of the study wasn’t any with any single statistic; it was that there’s 170 indicators, eight data sources, all showing the same thing: a generalized decline in kids’ health,” said Dr. Christopher Forrest, one of the study’s authors.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made children’s health a major focus of his work in the White House. In May, Kennedy Jr. released a report entitled “Make America Healthy Again” which described American children as undernourished, overmedicated, and lacking physical activity. 

Outside health experts have stated, however, that the Trump administration’s cuts to federal health agencies, Medicaid, and other health research is not helping the kids of America to become healthier and more active. 

“The health of kids in America is not as good as it should be, not as good as the other countries, and the current policies of this administration are definitely going to make it worse,” said Dr. Frederick Rivara, a pediatrician and researcher who co-authored an editorial accompanying the new study.

In order to make the conclusions within their study, Forrest and his colleagues analyzed surveys, utilized health records from 10 pediatric health systems as well as international mortality statistics.

The study cited obesity rates in US children aged 2-19 has risen from 17% in 2007/2008, to 21% in 2021 – 2023. 

In 2023, a child in the US was 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic condition such as anxiety, depression, or sleep apnea when compared to a child in 2011.

Throughout the entire study period, children reported an increase in trouble sleeping, limited physical activity, higher depression rates, and more. 

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AP reported the study showed American children were around 1.8 times more likely to die than kids in other high-income nations from 2007 to 2022. US infants are more likely to be born prematurely and succumb to sudden unexpected death. 

“The research points to bigger problems with America’s health,” said Forrest.

“Kids are the canaries in the coal mine. When kids’ health changes, it’s because they’re at increased vulnerability, and it reflects what’s happening in society at large,” he said.

“The timing of the study is completely fortuitous,” Forrest added.  

The previously mentioned editorial published with the study said “while the administration’s MAHA movement is bringing welcome attention to chronic diseases, it is pursuing other policies that will work against the interests of children.” 

The administration is eliminating injury prevention, maternal health programs, investments in a campaign addressing sudden infant death, and is “fueling vaccine hesitancy among parents that may lead to a resurgence of deadly vaccine-preventable diseases,” the authors wrote.

Forrest said that while “risks highlighted by the MAHA report, such as eating too much ultra-processed food, are real but miss the complex reality driving trends in children’s health.”

“We have to step back and take some lessons from the ecological sustainability community and say: Let’s look at the ecosystem that kids are growing up in. And let’s start on a kind of neighborhood-by-neighborhood, city-by-city basis, examining it,” he said.

New Study Reveals Severe Obesity Is On The Rise For US Children 

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An updated study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that although obesity rates in children were dropping last decade, it’s now on the rise. 

National data suggests that around 2.5% of preschool aged children were severely obese during 2020. Heidi Blanck of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one of the study’s authors, spoke on these discouraging findings:

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​​“We were doing well and now we see this upward trend. We are dismayed at seeing these findings.”

The study itself collected data from 2 to 4-year-old children that are enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children program through the US Food and Nutrition Service. This particular program helps provide healthy foods and other services to low-income families with preschool children. As a part of the program and study, the children were both weighed and measured, according to the AP. 

The researchers have collected data from the current and past decade from more than 1.6 million kids within the program. It found that in 2010, 2.1% of the children in the program were severely obese. In 2016 that percentage dropped to 1.8% but rose up to 2% by 2020; that’s roughly 33,000 out of the 1.6 million.

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20 states across the country saw the most significant increases, with California having the highest rate at 2.8%. Among different racial and ethnic groups, Hispanic kids saw the highest increase as well at 2.8%. 

Blanck stated that it’s not totally clear why these increases occurred. The initial drops in obesity rates were attributed to 2009 policy changes, including removing juice from infant food packages, reducing saturated fats in foods, and increasing accessibility to fruits and vegetables. 

“The daily hardships that families living in poverty are facing may be harder today than they were 10 years ago, and the slight increases in the WIC package just weren’t enough,” said Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a Duke University childhood obesity researcher.

Compared to last decade, the number of children in the WIC program has declined, and the data was also impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as researchers were still analyzing obesity rates when fewer parents were taking their children to the doctors.

“Despite its limitations, it was a very well done study. It gives you a hint of what’s going on,” said Deanna Hoelscher, a childhood obesity researcher at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, concluding that the researchers are “thinking it’s going to get worse.”