Most West Australian children aged two to five spend too much time plugged into screen-based entertainment and eat too few vegetables, a survey has found.
The annual Health and Wellbeing of Children in Western Australia survey examines the habits of kids aged 0 to 15 years, to allow the WA Health department to gauge the general state of children’s health.
Dr John Wray, WA Health’s senior clinical advisor to the Child Development Service, said it was recommended that two to five year olds should spend less than one hour a day in front of a screen, but three out of four were clocking in at over that amount.
“The content of even educative material on the television is probably better introduced to children through a real life human being,” he said.
“The evidence particularly in very young children is overwhelmingly in favour of zero television content.”
Children aged from five to 17 should not be staring at screen-based entertainment for more than two hours a day, while those aged up to two should not be exposed at all, Dr Wray said.
Dr Wray said early emphasis should be on the child’s development of attachment and early communication skills, and are best taught in person.
“Children who have the same content delivered by a real-life person do much better in terms of further language development,” he said.
Number of kids getting no exercise at seven-year high
The survey also found children who had not done any physical activity within the previous week was up 6.1 per cent from the previous year, and was the highest rate since 2006.
Girls were also 20 per cent less likely to be considered “very active” than boys, with just 37 per cent of girls in this category, compared with 55 per cent of boys.
However, about 98 per cent of West Australian children live in smoke free homes, and fewer women were smoking while pregnant.
“It’s very positive that so many more parents are making the decision not to smoke during pregnancy in order to give their children the best start in life,” Dr Wray said.
“However, we still see smoking-related problems in terms of upper respiratory and lower respiratory tract infections, asthma, and ongoing issues relating to smoking.”
He said the goal was to completely eradicate the use of common toxins – such as cigarettes and alcohol – during pregnancy, as well as other substance abuse.
‘Eat your vegetables’ message still hard to beat
The survey also revealed only four in 10 kids are eating enough vegetables.
“Vegetables are really important because of their concentration of vitamins and other essential nutrients,” Dr Wray said.
There were concerns children consumed foods with less nutrient value in the place of vegetables, which could contribute to obesity in young people, he said.
But it was not all bad news, with the number of children who have never eaten fast food hitting the highest it had been since the survey began in 2002.