Increased Screen Use Affects Diet and Other Health Factors

Heavy users of screens on an average of 17.5 hours per day report the least healthful dietary patterns and the poorest health-related characteristics compared with moderate and light users, who roughly use 11.3 and 7 hours of screen per day, respectively.

These findings were reported in a study recently published in BMC Public Health, one of the largest open access public health journals in the world.

‘Unique dietary habits are linked to different types of screen use such that heavy users of TV and smartphones display the least healthful dietary patterns when compared to heavy users of TV-connected devices, laptops and tablets. Also, heavy users of smartphones report the lowest quality of sleep, according to a recent study. ’

Chris Wharton, assistant dean of innovation and strategic initiatives at Arizona State University's College of Health Solutions, whose research interests include lifestyle wide behavior change, wanted to know what kind of relationship the time we spend in front of screens has with various health behaviors and factors.

"A lot of screen time-related literature has primarily focused on television but with the advancement of all these other types of devices that people use throughout the day, we wanted to see how health behaviors and factors are associated with a variety of screen-based devices," says Wharton.

For the study, more than 900 adults across the U.S. who owned a television and at least one other device with a screen were asked to complete a survey to evaluate the screen time use across multiple devices, dietary habits, duration and quality of sleep, stress, self-rated health, physical activity and body mass index.

Wharton suggests people to put their phones down 2 hours prior to bed-time to sustain good health.

Wharton also explored the phenomenon of binge-watching and found that it was significantly associated with less healthy dietary patterns, including frequency of fast food consumption, eating family meals in front of a television and perceived stress.

It was found that heavy screen users were consuming a lot of fast food. So the convenience of (screen use) seems to be associated with the convenience of fast food.

In another study, currently pending publication, Wharton asked 10 participants to give up screen use of any kind from the time they got home after work to the time they went to sleep for two weeks straight.

"We have some qualitative data to suggest that when people eliminate screens from their lives at night, magical things happen. Initial results suggest that people have to figure out what to do with this time, so they're doing things like spending more face-to-face with family and friends, cooking and preparing food, being physically active and engaging in hobbies," he continues.

COVID-19 pandemic is really bringing into focus, that our lives are fully mediated by screens. It is a good time to think about what a healthy but technologically plugged-in life could look like where screens aren't the only way in which we interact and do everything in our life. Screens are dominating us leading to severe health problems and unhealthy habits.



Source: Medindia