Original Research Article
Year: 2019 | Month: October-December | Volume: 4 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 50-54
Evils of Watching Television on Catching Weight
V. Bhavani1, Dr N. Prabhavathy Devi2
1Dietician, ESIC Medical College and Hospital, KK Nagar, Chennai
2Assistant Professor, Queen Marys College, Chennai
Corresponding Author: V. Bhavani
ABSTRACT
The present study explored the impact of television watching habits on eating pattern among Chennai youngsters. The youngsters nowadays spend more time in gadgets especially television viewing. While watching Television, they are prone to be immobile and practice sedentary pattern, moreover they tend to consume junk foods which in turn increases the body weight and BMI. This scenario is very common among youngsters of the metropolitan city like Chennai. Thus 1000 college students (500 male and 500 female) were selected by stratified sampling and random sampling method. A standardized, pre-tested Interview schedule was used to collect the required information about the subjects. The interview schedule consists of television watching habits of the subjects and the questions on type of food consumption while watching television. The obtained data was subjected to coding using Microsoft excel; statistical analysis using SPSS version 20.0 and the results were interpreted. Majority of the participants (77%) watch TV for more than 2 hours in a day. About 67.7% of the participants had the habit of eating while watching TV. 25% participants consumed packet foods. About 22.6% and 10.6% participants preferred fried snacks and cool drinks respectively. Calorie dense foods namely packet foods and fried foods were consumed more by overweight subjects than others, whereas underweight subjects were reported to consume more cool drinks. Thus the purpose of the research is to study the impact of television viewing habit on eating pattern among Chennai youngsters.
Key words: Television, Junk foods, calorie dense food, BMI, Gadgets, Overweight