Novo e importante alerta sobre os efeitos da TV nas crianças e na sua educação

Importante estudo da Universidade de Otago (Nova Zelândia), intitulado Association of television viewing during childhood with poor educational achievement, realizado ao longo de 30 anos, conclui: "An interesting finding was that although teenage viewing was strongly linked to leaving school without any qualifications, it was earlier childhood viewing that had the greatest impact on getting a degree. This suggests that excessive television in younger children has a long-lasting adverse effect on educational performance".

The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health & Development Research Unit conducts the long-running cohort study of approximately 1,000 babies born in Dunedin in 1972-73. The Study members have been assessed at birth, at age three, then every two years up to age 15, and again at age 18, 21 and 26 years. The age 32 assessments (2003-2005) have recently been completed, and included a broad range of studies in the psychosocial, behavioural medicine and biomedical research areas. To date over 940 publications and reports have been generated from this ongoing study. The Unit is part of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago, and is primarily funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

The study was authored by Dr Robert Hancox, Mr Barry Milne and Associate Professor Richie Poulton of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health & Development Research Unit and is published in this month's issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.