Watching television for more than two hours a day is not healthy for the kids…this is something parents already know. Besides putting children at risk of obesity, watching lots of television is also increasing the risk of developing asthma, according to a study in the journal Thorax.

 

Asthma, in which airways are easily irritated, causing inflammation and narrowing that makes it difficult to breathe, affects more than 300 million people worldwide and is the most common children’s chronic illness. Symptoms include wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest tightness. Asthma accounts for one in 250 deaths globally each year.

 

The study published in the journal Thorax is based on the analysis of more than 3,000 UK children from birth until nearly the age of 12.

 

The parents were asked annually on symptoms of wheezing among their children and whether a doctor had diagnosed asthma. Furthermore, the researchers asked them to assess their children’s TV viewing habits for the age of three-and-a-half years.

 

As babies, all of the children were free of wheeze. However, the situation changed by the time they were eleven, as 185 or 6 percent of them had developed asthma.

 

When analyzing the children who watched television, the researchers surprisingly found that those who watched television for more than two hours daily were almost twice as likely to have been diagnosed with asthma as those who watched less.

 

Overall, of the children with asthma, 2 percent did not watch TV, 20 percent watched television daily for less than an hour, 34 percent watched 1-2 hours a day and 44 percent watched more than two hours daily.

 

“This study has shown that for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,” Andrea Sherriff and colleagues from the University of Glasgow’s dental school said.

 

Previous studies have shown a connection between a sedentary lifestyle and changes in the lungs and wheezing illnesses in children, Sherriff added.

 

Elaine Vickers of Asthma UK, who was not involved in the study, said “the findings add to a wealth of evidence linking a lack of exercise and being overweight with an increased risk of asthma. But this study is the first to directly link a sedentary behavior at a very young age to a higher risk of asthma later in childhood.”

 

The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council. In the UK, about 5.4 million people, including 1.1 million children, have asthma. Current treatments are very efficient in helping these people breathe easily after an asthma attack. They relax the muscles and ease the inflammation, allowing the air flow to get into the lungs.