Bedtime TV affects kids' sleep badly

Even the presence of television in the bedroom is linked to less sleep among kids, said the study by researchers from MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in the US.

Investigators from MGHfC and HSPH are the first to examine the connection between television and sleep duration over several years. Each additional hour of television viewing was associated with seven fewer minutes of sleep daily - with the effects appearing to be stronger in boys than in girls - the study found.

The presence of a bedroom television reduced average sleep around a half-hour per day, said the study.

The study involved more than 1,800 children from ages six months to nearly eight years. The children and their mothers were enrolled in ‘Project Viva’, a long-term investigation of the health effects of several factors during pregnancy and after birth.

This study analysed information regarding how much time each day infants were in a room where a television was on, how much time older children watched television daily, whether children ages four to seven slept in a room where a TV was present and the children's average daily amount of sleep.

The study appears in the journal Pediatrics.