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Television, Children's Obesity Risk and Mental Well-being: Lessons from the UK Digital Switchover

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  • Adrian Nieto
  • Marc Suhrcke

Abstract

We examine the effect of screen-based activities on obesity and mental well-being for children, exploiting exogenous variation in the entry date of the digital television transition in the UK. The digital transition increased the number of available free television channels from 5 to 40, leading to an increase in television viewing time. Our results show that one additional year with access to digital television signal increases BMI z-scores by 0.159 standard deviations and the mental health total difficulties score by 2.13% among children. Underlying the net effects appears to be a decrease in physical activity among children, while neither eating habits nor personal views about self-appearance seem to play a signicant role.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrian Nieto & Marc Suhrcke, 2020. "Television, Children's Obesity Risk and Mental Well-being: Lessons from the UK Digital Switchover," LISER Working Paper Series 2020-12, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    • Handle: RePEc:irs:cepswp:2020-12
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Television; BMI; Obesity; Mental Health; Well-being;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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