85
Views
26
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Understanding the correlates of adolescents’ TV viewing: A social ecological approach

, , , &
Pages 161-168 | Received 10 Feb 2009, Accepted 07 Jul 2009, Published online: 09 Mar 2010
 

Abstract

Objective. To examine associations between social ecological factors and Dutch adolescents’ TV viewing. Design. Cross-sectional examination of predictors of adolescents’ TV viewing. Participants. A total of 338 adolescents, aged 14 years (55% boys). Measurements. Adolescents self-reported their age, ethnicity and TV viewing (dichotomized at two hours/day) and responded to items from all three social ecological domains; individual (cognitions based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and TV viewing habit strength, and other behaviours, such as computer use), social (parental rules about TV viewing and parental TV viewing behavior) and physical environmental factors (TV in bedroom, physical activity equipment available). Parents reported demographic factors (e.g., ethnicity, education level), and their own TV viewing (mins/day); adolescents’ weight status (not overweight vs. overweight/obese) was calculated from objective measures of height and weight. Logistic regression analyses examined associations between socio-ecological factors and adolescents’ TV viewing, and whether associations were moderated by adolescents’ sex, parents’ education and ethnicity. Results. Compared with others, overweight/obese adolescents (odds ratio (OR)=3.0; p≤0.001), those with high computer use (OR=2.3; p≤0.0001), with high TV viewing habit strength (OR=1.3; p≤0.0001), and those whose parents had high levels of TV viewing (OR=2.4; p≤0.01) were more likely to exceed two hours of TV viewing per day. The association with habit strength was moderated by gender, and the association with parents’ TV viewing was moderated by parents’ education and ethnicity. Conclusions. Interventions should target parents’ TV viewing behaviors and aim to amend habitual, ‘mindless’ TV viewing among adolescents.

Acknowledgements

The ENDORSE study was financially supported by a grant from ZonMw, The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (grant ID no 2100.0103). Jo Salmon is supported by a Career Development Award from the National Heart Foundation of Australia and Sanofi Aventis.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.