Whether it’s tablets or smartphones, toddlers are exposed to screens earlier and earlier. And a study of 552 children aged 2 to 5 in Singapore shows that those who have spent the most time in front of them are less mobile than others, explains the scientific journal. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health in a publication spotted by Release. These results support the World Health Organization, which has been warning for several years about the dangers of screens among the youngest.
On average, 2.5 hours of screen time per day
The team, made up of 16 researchers, followed 552 children between the ages of 2 and 5, asking their parents to record the daily hours spent on screen. At the end of the three years, they equipped them with an accelerometer, that is to say a device which captures and records the accelerations of an object.
The objective was to “measure the effect of screens on their future activity, then to identify precisely which types of activities replaced the time spent in front of”, the screens, details with Release Jonathan Bernard, French epidemiologist at Inserm, co-author of the study.
Their work first established an average daily exposure to screens of 2.5 hours. Of all participants, only 19% are watching screens for less than an hour a day, while almost a third (29%) watch a screen for more than three hours a day.
And this is not without consequences for his mobility. A 5-year-old child who is exposed to the screen for at least 3 hours a day sees his physical activity reduced by 40 minutes a day compared to that of a two-year-old who spends less than an hour in front.
180 minutes of daily physical activity
These data confirm the latest recommendations of the World Health Organization released last April: “To grow up healthy, children under the age of five must spend less time sitting in front of a screen or tied to their seat or in his stroller, ”said the WHO.
It is therefore advisable not to leave a child under the age of two in front of a screen and not to leave it for more than an hour when it reaches two years of age. Measures that must be accompanied by physical activity (moderate to strong) of at least 180 minutes, to avoid any risk of obesity.
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