Risk Factors Associated with
the Sedentary Lifestyle
It seems paradoxical that the modern risk sciences that enable
us to predict and control threats to our well being also produce
an immobilizing sense of anxiety that surrounds those threats
(Furedi, 1997). In our risk society, consumers are both more
aware of the health and environmental risks they face and more
uncertain about what they can do to avoid them. This seems particularly
true of the myriad daily lifestyle choices related to their
children's health that Canadians make in a growing atmosphere
of fear, anxiety and confusion. Of these lifestyle risks, some
of the most difficult to manage and control are those associated
with children's increasingly sedentary lifestyles - especially
the time they spend consuming commercial media.
After over thirty years of public controversy, the differential
effects of heavy media use on children remain poorly understood.
Yet media researchers believe there are two good reasons for
linking children's media saturated lifestyles to developmental
issues such as the decline in academic achievement, poor reading
skills, youth aggression and overweight children (Kline 2000;
Anderson et al.,2001; Amisola & Jacobson, 2003; Zuckerman
& Zuckerman, 1985).
1) Because of what children learn while watching or playing;
commercials filled with high fat foods and snack foods are
commonly seen by children watching television.
2) Because using media can displace other activities like
homework, active play, and peer and family interaction which
might provide healthier choices for children.
Children who watch less television will obviously be exposed
to fewer violent acts and fewer high fat or sugar food commercials,
and also influenced less by the idealized and anti-social
role models offered in programming and commercials. Moreover,
they will have more time to read and do better at school,
to play with their peer groups and learn social skills, and
to engage in more healthy activities like sports and games.
Media Consumption as a Safety Risk Factor:
Of the various risks discussed in the scientific literature,
the media's role in the socialization of aggression has been
the most studied, and perhaps the most controversial. In light
of available empirical evidence most health professionals
now recognize media as a safety risk factor because heavy
media use among children is associated with peer aggression
(American Psychological Association 2001; American Pediatrics
Societies 2001; Huston et al., 1992). But scientists note
that the risks associated with heavy media use are not uniformly
experienced. Not all children who watch a steady diet of violent
entertainment are aggressive or anti-social because media
risks interact with other risk factors such as class, community
crime and family dysfunction. Because there are so many mitigating
circumstances involved in children's media use - such as familial
rules, location of technology, modelling, critical dialogue,
dietary practice, and activity levels- these media risk factors
are hard to estimate and the models of these interactions
are complex (Eron, 1996).
For example, it has been established that family guidance
can influence the amount of time spent watching, the programming
preferences children develop, and their identification with
aggressive role models, all of which in turn can contribute
to the socialization of aggressive and anti-social behaviour
(Collins et al.,1981; Desmond, 1990; Nathanson & Cantor,
2000; Kline & Stewart, 2000).
In this respect, Garbarino (2001) notes that studies of "developmental
assets indicate that for asset-rich children, the risk of
aggression can be low while among asset-poor children the
risk is high."
Assets are found throughout the social ecology of the child,
family, school, neighborhood, and community. The rates of
significant violence are “6% for kids with 31 to 40
assets bracket, 16% for those with 21 to 30, 35% for those
with 11 to 20, and 61% for those with 0 to 10” (Garbarino,2001).
Surgeon General reports:
Risk and opportunity accumulate, which is why, as Garbarino
suggests, "an accumulation-of-risk model is essential
if we are to understand where televised violence fits into
the learning and demonstration of aggressive behavior."
Moreover, these community assets imply possibilities of addressing
developmental risks through community-based interventions.
The Surgeon General's (2001) report summarized the controversial
evidence concerning the media's contribution to youth aggression
in the following way:
"Research to date justifies sustained efforts to curb
the adverse effects of media violence on youths. Although
our knowledge is incomplete, it is sufficient to develop a
coherent public health approach to violence prevention that
builds upon what is known, even as more research is under
way. Unlike earlier Federal research reports on media violence
and youth (National Institute of Mental Health, 1982; U.S.
Surgeon General's Scientific Advisory Committee on Television
and Social Behavior, 1972), this discussion takes place within
a broader examination of the causes and prevention of youth
violence. This context is vital. It permits media violence
to be regarded as one of many complex influences on the behavior
of America's children and young people. It also suggests that
multilayered solutions are needed to address aggressive and
violent behavior."
Longitudinal study:
A recent well-designed longitudinal study published in Science
confirmed the importance of these environmental factors as
predictors of youth aggression (Johnson et al., 2002). Yet
these researchers noted that even after controlling for other
factors known to contribute to aggressiveness in young people
"like childhood neglect, growing up in an unsafe neighbourhood,
low family income, low parental education and psychiatric
disorders" there remain "significant associations
between television viewing during early adolescence and subsequent
aggressive acts against other persons" later in life
(Johnson et al, 2002). The relationship is strongest among
young boys who watch a lot of television: whereas 45% of the
boys who watched television more than 3 hours per day at age
14 subsequently committed aggressive acts involving others,
only 8.9% of boys who watched television less than an hour
a day were aggressive later in life. Unfortunately, because
longitudinal studies are expensive, we are only beginning
to understand how these various mitigating and disposing circumstances
contribute to the media's long-term influence on children's
social development.
Media Consumption as a Health Risk Factor:
Health scientists have long known that childhood obesity
is one of the least understood but fastest growing health
issues around the world (Leung 1994; Deitz 1991; duToit &
van der Merwe, 2003; Guldan, 1999). According to recent studies,
25% of American children, 16% of Russian children, and 7%
of Chinese children ages 6 to 18 are either overweight or
obese (Hope 2002). The child obesity rate is 10.6% in Chile
(Guldan, 1999) and 16% in both Thailand and Saudi Arabia (Macdonald,
1999). In Canada, there is escalating alarm at the growing
numbers of overweight and obese children identified in health
surveys (Tremblay & Willms, 2000; Katzmarzyk, 2002; Andersen
2000; DeMont & Hawaleska, 2002). Stories about the "obesity
epidemic" are now featured in the news with increasing
frequency and ever growing alarm.
Studies in the USA have revealed significant increases in
BMI for children under 4 years of age, especially over the
last 10 years (Dietz & Gortmaker, 2001; Flegal, Carroll
et al., 2002). Researchers warn that obesity is often associated
with "cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension,
high cholesterol levels, and abnormal glucose tolerance"
which have sizeable long term consequences for the health
care system (Birmingham et al., 1999; Ebbeling, et al., 2002),
yet the "immediate consequences of overweight in childhood
are often psychosocial" including bullying and depression
(Ogden, Flegal et al., 2002). Pediatricians have also cautioned
the public that obese children experience an increased risk
of diabetes, heart disease, orthopedic problems, chronic inflammation
and many other chronic diseases and psychological problems
such as negative self-image and low self-esteem (Andersen,
2000; Ebbeling et al., 2002; Kiess & Bottner et al., 2003).
Fast food culture:
Recent authors note that overweight is associated with both
physical inactivity induced by childhood fascinations with
television viewing and the worldwide promotion of fast food
culture. (Jeffery & French, 1998; French et al., 2001;
Chatterjee, 2002; Ebbeling et al.,2002; Coon & Tucker,
2002; Schlosser, 2001). Media use can become a risk factor
in obesity to the degree children habitually snack while watching,
or if their media consumption displaces more healthy and active
leisure pursuits (sports, play, work), or if the media exposes
them to role models and messages that convey unhealthy lifestyles.
Noting that 10% of 2-through 5-year-olds were overweight,
while more than 15% of 6-through 19-year-olds were overweight,
recent studies suggest that childhood obesity involves learned
risk factors that increase with age and is then sustained
through life (Ogden, Flegal et al., 2002). Because these rates
have increased recently in many developed countries, it is
also believed that the obesity epidemic arises from children's
increasingly inactive lifestyle and high fat/ carbohydrate
diets (Dietz 1996; Dietz 1998).
Sedentary Lifestyles:
A number of U.S. scientists have found evidence that children's
sedentary lifestyles are largely linked to excessive media
use (Faith, Heo et al., 2001), both in its own right or in
interaction with other mitigating familial variables like
diet and family modelling which increases the likelihood of
inactivity and a high fat and sugar diet among many young
people (Taras, Sallis et al., 1989; Anderson, Huston et al.,
2001; Crespo, Smith et al., 2001; Burggrat, 2001). Most of
this attention is directed to television (TV) viewing, “which
has been associated with childhood obesity in both cross-sectional
and longitudinal studies" (Faith, Heo et al., 2001).
Research conducted by Crespo et al. (2001) has also suggested
that "(t)elevision watching was positively associated
with obesity among girls, even after controlling for age,
race/ethnicity, family income, weekly physical activity, and
energy intake". Not surprisingly, researchers regularly
find that obesity rates are lowest among children who consume
less than 1 hour a day of television. Our own analysis from
the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey (2001) of over 13,000 U.S.
teens, provides estimates of the developmental risks associated
with heavy television viewing: those who view more than 4
hours per day are both significantly less active (sports participation
and workouts) and are overrepresented in the overweight group
(24.5%), compared with moderate (19.7%) and light (15.2%)
media consumers. In Canada too, where children spend 22 hours
a week watching television at home, there is escalating alarm
that the growing numbers of overweight and obese children
identified in health surveys are linked to their media consumption
(Andersen, 2000).
Bedroom Culture; Increased access in secluded
places:
It is widely believed that the influx of digital media into
the home will only amplify the public debates about children's
sedentary lifestyles. As Kline and Botterill (2001) note,
the trend of placing media in a child's bedroom tends to decrease
supervision of media consumption by parents while increasing
the amount of time children spend playing, watching and listening.
One group of researchers argues that "access to computers
increases the total amount of time children spend in front
of a television or computer screen at the expense of other
activities, thereby putting them at risk for obesity"
(Subrahmanyam, Kraut et al., 2000). In the USA there has been
growing focus on the presence of media in the bedroom: "Almost
40% of children had a TV set in their bedroom; they were more
likely to be overweight and spent more time (4.6 hours per
week) watching TV/video than children without a TV in their
bedroom" (Dennison, Erb & Jenkins, 2002). Moreover,
it has become apparent that the Internet exposes children
to new safety risks associated with cyber-stalking and email
bullying (Media Awareness Network, 2001). In Canada, 30 minutes
using the Internet and an hour of video game play has been
added to the 22 hours per week children spend watching TV.
Exposure to Advertisements:
TV is still at the heart of this debate because it remains
the pre-eminent channel for children’s marketing. In
the course of their entertainment viewing, TV presents children
with a constant stream of lifestyle advertising, much of it
in children's programming for fast foods, snacks, and sugary
cereals (Saelens, Sallis et al., 2002; Lewis & Hill, 1998).
By watching TV for 2.3 hours per day, children are exposed
to over 20,000 advertisements per year, most of them for snack
and fast foods (Gentile & Walsh, 2002). With Channel One
beamed into over 30,000 schools, U.S. children are exposed
to upwards of 1,000 ads in school. Given current trends in
youth marketing of fast foods and video games, heavy media
consumption may be expected to compound the inactivity of
the digital generation by exposing them to more and more 'unhealthy
lifestyle' messages and unsuitable lifestyle models in advertising.
Can it be assumed that children under the age of twelve are
capable of making risk-informed lifestyle choices when they
devour their happy meals and drink their colas (Kincheloe,
2002)?
Impact on Body Image:
The body images projected in advertisements rarely reflect
childhood norms (Wolf-Bloom, 1999; Field et al., 1999). As
Irving et al. (2002) note: "Children and adolescents
may be exposed to conflicting messages regarding food- and
weight-related issues from family members and from society-at-large
as they are encouraged to maintain a thin body while being
exposed to numerous opportunities to overeat (e.g., to 'supersize'
a food order at fast-food restaurants)" (Irving &
Neumark-Sztainer, 2002). Although the impact of food and diet
advertising on children's attitudes, self esteem and behaviour
is poorly understood it is generally hypothesized that children
who rely on media as their dominant form of entertainment
will be less active, exhibit poor dietary knowledge, and develop
preferences for high fat and carbohydrate diets. They may
also lack self-esteem, have fewer friends and develop inappropriate
body images.
Policy Context: limitations in current risk
communication:
Since the rapid diffusion of television during the 1950's,
the ‘ill effects’ of children's increasingly media
saturated lifestyles have been matters of intense public controversy
(Barker & Petley, 2001). Yet as in so many cases, public
perceptions of lifestyle risks to children are among the most
distorted (Kasperson, 1992; Furedi, 1997). One reason is that
journalistic coverage of the health and safety risks to children
tend to be sensationalized (Sorenson, S. B., Peterson Manz,
J. G. et al., 1998). For example, news reporting has tended
to overstate the mortality risks associated with spectacular
school massacres at Littleton and Taber, while understating
the levels of bullying, peer aggression and anti-social behaviour
youth face (Maguire, B., Weatherby, G. A. et al., 2002; Dorfman,
L., Woodruff, K. et al., 1997). Murray (2001) finds that while
news reporting of youth aggression is sensationalized, the
actual coverage of the scientific findings about media effects
has tended to understate and poorly explain the evidence linking
heavy media consumption to peer aggression. Thus the public
controversy over media effects serves only to increase the
anxiety parents feel about raising their children in a media
saturated world.
Failure of Regulations:
In spite of parental support to provide a legislated buffer
zone against media violence and children's marketing, the
trends are towards growing de-regulation of media and greater
responsibility placed on parents to manage those media risks
(Kline 1993, 2000). Even much trumpeted technological solutions
such as the V-chip have proven of limited value in reducing
children's exposure to violent programming (McDowell &
Mailtland, 1998; Roberts, 1998). There has been strong public
support for regulation of children's advertising (Montgomery,
1998). The European Community, for example, recently considered
extending the laws governing the advertising of cigarettes
and alcohol products in prime time TV to other product categories
like fast foods - or banning children's advertising entirely
(Hansen et. al., 2002). However, increasingly, regulation
of the promotion of risky products (from cigarettes, spirits,
video games, prescription drugs), even to children, finds
protection in constitutional guarantees of free speech (Kunkel,
1990). Moreover, because lifestyle risk campaigns (i.e. ‘Speak
Out Against Violence’) are mostly distributed through
commercial media channels, they can be swamped by popular
culture and lifestyle marketing messages. It is hardly surprising,
therefore, that although the public experiences deep anxiety
about the media, they perceive that very little can be done
about the risks associated with their children's heavy consumption,
other than regulation (Coulter & Murray, 2001).
Need to examine Media as Risk:
Moreover risk communicators have largely ignored children
themselves. Although it was once hoped that media would provide
them with a "window onto the world,” fifty years
of studying children's media indicates that children growing
up in the media saturated household develop patterns of media
consumption which are entertainment oriented rather than information
seeking. Children rarely follow the news or watch educational
programs, preferring to spend their time in front of the television
watching drama, general entertainment and sporting programmes.
So too, despite initial optimism about the digital generation,
it is increasingly clear that the Internet is primarily used
by children for entertainment, play and social communication
(Media Awareness Study 2001); the information children seek
through networked computers pertains to their leisure interest
in music, sports, games and celebrity gossip, more than it
does to homework assignments or health information. The chat
room gossip exchanges are more likely to talk about Britney
Spears' clothes than her work-out routine. In short, children's
media use is unlikely to help them understand the risks they
encounter while using the media.
Communicating about Media Related Lifestyle
Risks to Parents and Children
Realizing the magnitude of these lifestyle risks, health
promotion professionals have called for high profile campaigns
targeting sedentary lifestyles and excessive media consumption
to be directed at both adults and children (Klein, Brown et
al., 1993). Yet some health educators doubt that the current
medical channels for health promotion can be effective on
their own. However interested parents are in understanding
risks associated with children's sedentary lifestyle, the
medical information is available long after their children's
media use patterns are well established. Moreover, as Irving
and Neumark-Sztainer (2002) suggest, the tendency among medical
professionals is to treat media risks in a fragmented way:
"Despite the fact that obesity, eating disorders, and
unhealthy weight loss practices are cultivated in the same
cultural context, for the most part these problems are regarded
as distinct, with different origins, courses, and approaches
to prevention and treatment." Although "the evidence
linking media exposure to these health outcomes is well-documented
and accepted by many pediatricians," researchers state
"it is troubling that so few pediatric training programs
examine the potent risk factors of media exposure" (Rich
& Bar-on, 2001). Because pediatric information is directed
at parents, they find their children do not always share their
concerns about media use.
Social Marketing:
Noting the extensive resources devoted to public health promotion
campaigns directed at youth (anti-smoking, anti-drugs, etc.),
critics of social marketing approaches have developed campaigns
to counteract the sedentary lifestyle risks associated with
heavy media consumption using 'subvertorials' (e.g. Adbusters).
Yet health promotion professionals know that advertising campaigns
are only marginally effective in reducing smoking or drug
taking -- which represent lifestyle choices which are subject
to peer group pressure (Bloor, 1999). Even high profile campaigns
such as the 1994/1995 Canadian Association of Broadcasters'
10 million dollar 'Speak Out Against Violence and the 1996/1997
‘Violence: You Can Make a Difference,’ have had
marginal effect on public attitudes, behaviour or policy.
Without funding on a scale of anti-smoking, anti-drug, and
AIDS awareness campaigns, it is unlikely that advertising
campaigns will prove very effective in reducing media risks,
let alone counter-balancing the impact of unhealthy lifestyle
information presented in children's advertising.
Risk Communication and Risk Reduction
Programmes:
A less tried strategy for risk communication involves the
development of risk communication and risk reduction programmes
which use community channels for health risk communication
(Maccoby et. al., 1977; Dietrich, 2000; Maxwell, 2002; Hanlon
& Richards et al., 2002). One study found that increasing
physical activity through family involvement was a more effective
means of health education: "finding that children who
are reinforced for reduced sedentary behavior do not simply
substitute one sedentary behavior for another but reallocate
a certain portion of time to other physical activities"
(Faith, Heo et al., 2001). Other researchers have developed
a media education prevention program called "New Moves"
which teaches critical viewing skills to girls (Neumark-Sztainer
et al., 2000). These researchers suggest that a media literacy/advocacy
approach helps children to become critical consumers through
discussions of issues like "body dissatisfaction, weight
preoccupation, and preferences for high-fat food products,
all of which will help to prevent the establishment of unhealthy
eating practices " (Irving & Neumark-Sztainer, 2002).
Although the programme focuses classroom discussion on the
child's eating and lifestyle choices in a way which identifies
"role models of all shapes, sizes, and diverse backgrounds...”
as well as discussing ways of coping with pressures to diet
(e.g., teasing, discrimination based on weight), it also builds
social support from family, peers, and others into the learning
activities (Irving & Neumark-Sztainer, 2002). This integrated
approach targets the peer group as a whole, by helping both
unaffected and affected individuals understand eating-related
issues, healthy lifestyle choices, and issues of body image
attempting to lessen "pressures (e.g., from peers, media,
family) to engage in unhealthy behaviors" (Irving &
Neumark-Sztainer, 2002).
Dr. Thomas Robinson Media Reduction Intervention:
Recognizing the pivotal role that television and video games
increasingly play in children's lives, and the significant
costs associated with their related health risks, Dr. Thomas
Robinson, at the Medical Center of Stanford University, remarked
how little effort has been expended on reducing these health
and safety risks associated with media use. Robinson reasoned
that if heavy media consumption increases the risks of obesity
then reducing use should lessen those risks. His team developed
an in-school media education program for young children in
grades 3 and 4, which not only communicated about these health
risks but challenged children to limit their total media use
(films, TV, and video games) during one month. The programme
promoted media use time budgeting and selective viewing or
playing as well as providing a media education programme that
extended over 18 weeks. Early lessons included self-monitoring
and self-reporting of television, videotape, and video game
use to motivate children to want to reduce the time they spent
in these activities. Newsletters designed to motivate parents
to help their children stay within their time budgets were
distributed to parents ; theses also suggested strategies
for limiting television, videotape, and video game use for
the entire family.
The Stanford team not only found that this media education
program successfully promoted reduced media use resulting
in less aggression and bullying on the playground (Robinson
et al., 2001) but also noted a slowing in weight gain among
test schools where the programme was delivered (Robinson,
1999). In a carefully controlled experiment, these researchers
found that at the end of this eight month study, children
in the intervention group had reduced their TV viewing by
about one-third and their ratings of peer judged aggression
were about 25 percent lower than those at the control school.
The reduced media consumption school also engaged in about
half as many verbally aggressive behaviours - such as teasing,
threatening, or taunting their peers - on the playground when
compared with students at the control school. Both boys and
girls benefited from the intervention curriculum, and the
most aggressive students, according to the study, experienced
the greatest drop in combativeness. Comparing students in
the media education group with those at the control group
also showed reduced risk of obesity (measured by BMI and skin
fold), although there was no evidence of more active leisure.
In short this study demonstrated that targeting media use
in the primary classroom provided a viable way of intervening
in the cluster of interrelated developmental factors associated
with a sedentary lifestyle.
Towards a Canadian Risk Reduction Demonstration Project: Approach
and Method:
Robinson's promising research indicates that targeting media
consumption through the schools may be a highly effective
strategy for reducing the interacting sedentary lifestyle
risks to playground aggression, overweight and inactivity
among children. However Robinson's pilot study did not address
the various other risk factors and mitigating circumstances
or community assets that are known to support risk communication
as well as reduction. With the help of the Crime Prevention
Community Mobilization Fund of Canada, the Media Analysis
Laboratory at Simon Fraser University is currently piloting
a community risk reduction strategy in North Vancouver focused
on improving school safety. This strategy targets elementary
children (grades 3-6) because they are in the process of forming
their sedentary lifestyle practices, are subject to peer influence,
and because parental concern and involvement in media use
or its alternatives is highest. The goal of this study is
to make children and parents at the pilot schools more aware
of media risk factors and more willing to participate in a
media reduction week challenge.
We are proposing herein to turn this pilot project into a
formative evaluation of a community based media risk reduction
strategy that uses educational channels to target families.
Our overall goal will be to develop, conduct and evaluate
a community health promotion initiative that demonstrates
whether family focused community risk reduction strategies
can increase parental awareness of sedentary lifestyle risks,
reduce the time children spend using media, increase their
active leisure and promote healthier eating. The research
will be conducted in three stages:
• Stage 1 involves the preparation and analysis of sedentary
risks and mitigating factors survey;
• Stage 2 involves the design, production and delivery
of lifestyle risk education to parents and students; and
• Stage 3 involves the evaluation of risk reduction
treatment based on a comparison of changes in risk knowledge
and sedentary risk factors and health status in the target
families.
Stage 1: We will begin this project
with a risk factor survey that examines the relationship between
children's media use and preferences and the various risk
factors associated with sedentary lifestyle risks (see figure
2). Of primary interest in this phase of the study will be
modelling the contribution of media use, attitudes and preferences
to overweight health status indicators (measured by BMI, skin-fold,
grades, depression and self esteem), and victimization indicators
(bullying, teasing, lack of friends), in relationship to other
sedentary lifestyle risk factors (inactivity, dieting, leisure
preferences, feelings of hostility, identification with aggressive
heroes, fast and fatty food preferences, snacking while watching
etc.) and environmental mitigating factors (family style factors
including media regulation, modelling, diet, sports participation,
health system programmes, etc.). A take-home parental survey
will examine the degree to which parents are aware of and
concerned about sedentary lifestyle risks to their children
and what they are capable of and willing to do about these
risk factors.
Stage 2: After this risk assessment
phase, the project team will design and deliver a media risk
education programme through the test schools chosen from those
within North Vancouver district. Since we know that providing
information about risks will not necessarily be sufficient
to change media consumption, eating and active leisure practices
of children, this risk communication strategy will adapt,
script and produce 12 media education units (e.g. adapted
from Robinson, Bar On, Irving and others) covering safety
and health related risk factors (what makes a hero, bully-victim
roles, fast food advertising, body image issues, etc.). The
delivery of this classroom curriculum will be supported with
a sedentary lifestyle risk communication programme for parents,
which will be designed not only to communicate what is known
about those risk factors, but also what is known about various
ways of mitigating these risk factors (such as removing media
from the bedroom, enforcing media use rules, stopping snacks
while watching, using community resources). Pamphlets and
a website will be supported by parental information sessions
and workshops discussing family mitigation factors (arranged
with the North Vancouver Parent Advisory Council). We will
also work with various health and safety agencies to ensure
that where possible, community support for alternatives (in
public spaces, after school groups, recreation centers as
well as sports and fitness groups) are available for children
who choose to limit their media consumption practices.
Stage 3: The third stage of the
study will include a systematic evaluation comparing pre and
post health status, risk factors and family attitudes and
practices in our treatment schools.
Dissemination: Our dissemination
plan includes not only reporting this result to Health Canada
but making the results available to the community, to various
audiences including community medicine and health education
professionals as well as to agencies and advocacy groups with
an interest in reducing media risks (i.e. Media Awareness
Network, Media Watch, RCMP, Children's Advertising Board etc.)
Relevance: We believe this project
will contribute to Health Canada policy:
1) by gathering new Canadian evidence
about the little understood media risk and risk mitigating
factors in sedentary lifestyles;
2) by demonstrating to what degree
a well designed community risk education strategy (executed
with the support of parents, teachers, local media, health
professionals and community centres) can communicate about
sedentary lifestyle risks to both children and parents; and
3) by assessing the degree to which
reduction of various media consumption risk factors can improve
the health and safety of children.
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