Television viewing and snacking behaviors of fourth- and eighth-grade schoolchildren in Texas

Child and adolescent overweight is a serious health issue. Both snacking and television watching have been associated with childhood overweight, but the relationships have not been well examined in a multiethnic population. The aim of this study was to examine relationships between weekday television viewing, snack consumption, consumption of foods advertised on television, and overweight status of a multiethnic sample of fourth- and eighth-grade schoolchildren in Texas.

This study is a secondary analysis of data from the School Physical Activity and Nutrition monitoring system, a validated survey with objective measures of height and weight. The sample of 11,594 children in the fourth and eighth grades was weighted to provide data representative of children in Texas public schools. Children were categorized on the basis of self-reported daily television viewing, snack consumption, and consumption of foods advertised on television. Multiple logistic regression was used to analyze, by grade level, the differences in the prevalence of overweight by category.

Television viewing, frequency of snack consumption, and consumption of foods advertised on television were all positively related to one another. In general, both consuming more snacks and foods advertised on television were associated with reduced odds of overweight regardless of the amount of television watched.

The results suggest that the relationships between weekday snacking behaviors and television viewing in a multiethnic population are complicated. When these behaviors are clustered, overweight status may be related more to the number of snacks consumed than to the amount of television watched. To determine the exact relationship, additional research, especially among Hispanic children, is warranted.