Children's Health Defense Ran Barzilay, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of a study published Monday in Pediatrics and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Defender he hopes parents will consider how their decision to hand their kid a cellphone may affect their child’s health.
Children who have their own cellphone by age 12 are at greater risk of obesity, depression and insufficient sleep than kids who don’t — and the younger they are when they get the phone, the greater risk they’ll be obese and have trouble sleeping, according to research published Monday in Pediatrics.
Ran Barzilay, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Defender he hopes parents will consider how their decision to hand their kid a cellphone may affect their child’s health.
“It should not be something that you do and forget about it,” Barzilay said. “Rather, parents should communicate this to their kids and work together to see how smartphone ownership affects their lifestyle and wellbeing.”
The study authors conducted statistical analyses of data on more than 10,000 U.S. 12-year-olds in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, described as the “largest long-term look at children’s brain development in the United States to date.”
Barzilay’s team brought together researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Penn Medicine, the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University.
In addition to looking at 12-year-olds who already had cellphones, they also tracked 12-year-olds who didn’t have a cellphone at the beginning of the year but were given one by age 13.
…
Read Full Article Here…(childrenshealthdefense.org)
Home | Caravan to Midnight (zutalk.com)
Live Stream + Chat (zutalk.com)
Be First to Comment