You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Asthma
Association of duration of television viewing in early childhood with the subsequent development of asthma
  1. A Sherriff1,
  2. A Maitra2,
  3. A R Ness3,
  4. C Mattocks4,
  5. C Riddoch4,
  6. J J Reilly5,
  7. J Y Paton5,
  8. A J Henderson6
  1. 1
    Dental School, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  2. 2
    Department of Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Sheffield, UK
  3. 3
    Department of Oral and Dental Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  4. 4
    School for Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK
  5. 5
    Division of Developmental Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  6. 6
    Department of Community-Based Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  1. Dr A Sherriff, Dental School, Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G2 3JZ, UK; a.sherriff{at}dental.gla.ac.uk

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether duration of television (TV) viewing in young children is associated with subsequent development of asthma.

Methods: Children taking part in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) with no wheeze up to the age of 3.5 years and follow-up data at 11.5 years of age took part in a prospective longitudinal cohort study. The main outcome measure was asthma, defined as doctor-diagnosed asthma by 7.5 years of age with symptoms and/or treatment in the previous 12 months at 11.5 years of age. Parental report of hours of TV viewing per day by the children was ascertained at 39 months.

Results: In children with no symptoms of wheeze at 3.5 years of age and follow-up data at 11.5 years of age, the prevalence of asthma was 6% (185/3065). Increased TV viewing at 3.5 years was associated with increased prevalence of asthma at 11.5 years of age (p for linear trend = 0.0003). Children who watched television for >2 h/day were almost twice as likely to develop asthma by 11.5 years of age as those watching TV for 1–2 h/day (adjusted odds ratio 1.8 (95% CI 1.2 to 2.6)).

Conclusion: Longer duration of TV viewing in children with no symptoms of wheeze at 3.5 years of age was associated with the development of asthma in later childhood.

https://doi.org/10.1136/thx.2008.104406

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Funding: AS was funded by Medical Research grant MRC G0401540. The funding source had no involvement in the authors’ work.

    • Competing interests: None.

    • Ethics approval: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the ALSPAC Law and Ethics Committee and the local research ethics committees.

    Linked Articles

    • Airwaves
      Airwaves
      Wisia Wedzicha
      Thorax 2009; 64 i-i Published Online First: 27 Mar 2009.