Screen Time and Obesity

Screen Time and Obesity

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
OSU professor of nutrition Melinda Manore talks about technology and nutrition.

Are you seeing a correlation between iPods and obesity? I do think there is an issue with screen time and sedentary time. We know kids spend too much time doing that, as well as adults, and there is interesting research now that is focused on sedentary behavior. How sedentary are we and how can we even get people to get up once an hour and move. it seems like a disconnect sometimes between technology and activity but technology can give you a lot of feedback and encourage physical activity. Phones and other devices can have GPS devices in them so if you are exercising, you can quickly see how far did I go, what did I do, so it can give you some positive feedback. For someone who has always been a bit of a skeptic when it comes to some of those things, I am actually finding this very interesting in terms of the kind of feedback it can give you and encourage you and interacting with other people and finding out how much it has encouraged them to lose weight and stay fit. Technology is here to stay. Kids nowadays have grown up with it so how can we use technology to help them stay healthy?

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