Experts criticize long periods of use and see advertising for junk food as the cause
Children who spend over half an hour online every day on a tablet or smartphone are urging their parents to buy ready-made food such as pizza or hamburgers. They do this twice as often as children, who surf the Internet less often, according to researchers at the University of Liverpool in cooperation with the British Cancer Research Center .
2,700 children interviewed
The scientists surveyed 2,700 children between the ages of seven and eleven and their parents about their eating habits and the amount of time they spend on the Internet. The aim of the study was to uncover whether there is a connection between diet and the advertising of convenience foods on the Internet and television.
The study shows that schoolchildren who surf the Internet for more than three hours a day spend four times more pocket money on chocolate, snacks, sugary drinks and takeaway meals than their less Internet-dependent peers.
79 percent of children who spend more than three hours a day on the Internet are overweight or even obese. This fate “only” applies to 53 percent of children who are online between 30 and 180 minutes a day.
Weight second highest risk of cancer
Obesity in children has fatal consequences, especially in adulthood. The chance of being overweight is five times higher than for children of normal weight. According to cancer researchers, being overweight increases the risk of developing 13 different types of cancer.
Excess pounds is the second largest cancer risk in the UK after smoking. Emma Boyland from the University of Liverpool blames internet and commercial TV advertising for the unhealthy diets of children who spend a lot of time in front of the screen.
Cancer researcher Jyotsna Vohra even demands that TV advertisements for unhealthy foods should not be broadcast before 9 p.m. Children also need to be protected from corresponding advertising on the Internet and when streaming videos.
“This advertising causes children to eat more unhealthy foods,”
complains Vohra.
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