TV causes cancer, Alzheimers, and autism, claims psychologist

A report from Dr Aric Sigman in science journal Biologist lists 15 health problems that can be attributed to excessive TV viewing in childhood including childhood obesity, eyesight problems, diabetes and hormonal changes. It is apparently based on Sigman's analysis of 35 separate scientific studies, in response to which he writes: "Given the evidence, it would be prudent to cordon off the early years of child development as a time when screen media is excluded and then introduced judiciously as the child matures."

Here are his key claims:

- The average six-year-old in Britain has spent one full year watching TV, and more than half of three-year-olds have a set in their bedrooms

- The risk of developing Alzheimer's increases with each extra daily hour of television viewing among people aged 20 to 60

- Watching TV is linked with obesity, lower immunity, premature puberty, poor concentration, reading difficulties, raised cholesterol and type 2 diabetes

Now, not much of this is new. We've seen it all before in various studies. And while some might think that Sigman is pushing things a bit far in claiming that TV is as bad as all that, there is a mounting body of evidence that suggests that it can in fact contribute to all of the problems he mentions.

The TV industry is, naturally, up in arms about such research, and makes every effort to rubbish it. The timing could not be worse: just as funding for children's programming in the UK is being slashed, and junk-food advertising bans are being imposed during children's programmes, we're now being told that maybe our kids shouldn't be watching so much TV anyway, because it might actually be causing them to reach puberty much earlier, as well as increase their chances of developing cancer or dementia in later life.

If the industry took a more responsible position, we could perhaps allow it a place in the debate about how to proceed from here. I don't doubt that TV can be useful for educating children in some very particular circumstances. But while the official line of those that make it is to argue that advertising junk food to children does not contribute to childhood obesity, I have no respect for them at all. If the adverts didn't influence children's eating habits, why would advertisers spend so much money on trying to do just that? They are not motivated by a desire to see children's programming budgets increasing , and why should they be? Their business is selling habitually addictive fats and sugars to children. So when it comes to research that suggests actual physical hard caused by television on young bodies, the TV industry would do well to react more responsibly by engaging with the new revelations, rather than attacking them as invalid.

I wonder if one day we will look at TV the same way we look at smoking today. My generation grew up laughing at the idea that not long before we were alive, people apparently had no idea that inhaling the smoke of burning tobacco might actually be bad for the body. How absurd might it have seemed back then to suggest that cancer was a risk for smokers? But now we find it totally unsurprising that this is the case: of course it's harmful to smoke. Maybe one day claims like these about TV won't seem so alarmist, and we'll look back at today's news with much less surprise than Five's director of children's programmes, Nick Wilson, who rubbished the news as no more than "a good headline ... [to be] forgotten in two months' time".

Crap on TV

If you've been reading the previous entries in this blog, you might, like me, have noticed a disturbing new trend in British TV: there's been a definite increase in the amount of crap on TV. And I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense, I mean actual crap--the brown, smelly, stuff that comes out of your bottom.

I'm not sure why there's so much shit on television. It would seem that as we start the 21st Century, TV viewers are actually regressing to some sort of retarded anal phase. Here's a short list of some copraphilic shows that have found their way onto mainstream TV. Feel free to add any you can think of, as I'm sure there are more:

You Are What You Eat
in which Gillian McKeith inspects punters' turds.

Little Miss Nicky
in which a reality TV punter does unpleasant jobs, usually involving turds.

Little Britain
in which 'Anne' gives some children a picture made by smearing a turd on a canvas.

Colin and Justin on the Estate
in which C&J get all upset about pigeon turds (see entry below)

Glade Touch N Spray commercial
in which a small child bemoans the scent of his own turd (didn't we used to avoid actually mentioning excrement in bathroom product ads?)

[amusingly, the spell check suggested 'Colon & Justin']

Child Genius (C4)

Last night's Child Genius on Channel 4 promised to be the first part of a series that will revisit 10 'gifted' children every two years to monitor their progress in life--a sort of Seven Up! for the 21st Century. And with extremely intelligent children. But the programme stood up well as a one-off documentary showing what life is like for these children and their parents, despite it's hour and a half running time. No irritating pre ad break trails of what was to come, nor reminders of what you'd just seen three minutes ago. This was how all documentaries should be made. It was modern, clear, and insightful. Totally unpatronising to both audience and participants, Child Geniuswas such a refreshing thing to see on TV, especially on the increasingly tabloid Channel 4.

It would be so easy to hate the kids featured in the programme. They're freaks. They can do things many adults will never be able to do, and that can make people jealous. But the beauty of Wall to Wall's film was that it avoided the temptaion to portray them as mere robots, or the product of overly pushy parents. The parents were pushy, it's true, but you couldn't blame most of them. What else could they do you do but encourage and stimulate their children when they discovered they had amazing abilities to do maths, play the piano, cook, write, etc? Anything other approach would risk condemning them to years of boredome and frustration.

The film introduced us to a variety of gifted children, each with a very different personality and set of skills. The participants ranged from the completely freakish family whose hothousing of all of their offspring looked nothing short of child abuse (the mother had decided it was her duty to produce doctors for the world. Tha father was barely allowed to speak at all), to the charmingly endearing parents who were totally uninterested in their son's IQ score, but instead wanted to know how to help him live a happy life despite his heavy burden of being a wonderful thinker with an extraordinary outlook on the world. This child, Dante, perhaps provided the most touching moments of the programme. His depression seemed totally understandable, and we shared his frustration with having the mental abilities of a very sensitive adult whilst being trapped in the reality of being a child. He strived for perfection in a world where perfection is impossible--a summary of the human condition that most adults on TV would have difficulty expressing as clearly and simply as he did.

At no time did the programme makers give in to the pressure to make any of the parents look better or worse than they probably were. They were real people in a state of genuine confusion over how to react to their unusual children. They were caring, harsh, encouraging, and flawed, all at the same time, and it is no easy thing to put that accross in a film. Only the Addams Family-like doctor and spiritual leader breeders came over as cruel and insane, and it was hard to see that as anyone's fault but their own. The programme was brave to show their peculiarities in full, too.


If there were more challenging, intelligently made programmes like this one on our screens, perhaps TV would be helping to bring up a generation of thinkers and doers like those we saw in Child Genius. Instead we seem to be breeding overweight, lazy, superstitious drones to be future participants for Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, and Fat Club. Lazy, rubbish programmes help make lazy rubbish children.

Link to Child Genius promo