Taylor Hopkins

UWRT 1102
Professor Dagher
12/7/2014
Have we corrupted our children with technology?
I remember about 13 years ago, when I was around the age of 7, I would always look
forward to going outside to play with my neighbors. We would either be riding bikes or playing
on our swing sets. If it was raining, we could always find something else to do like dressing up
our extensive collection of Barbies or spending hours playing board games. Flash forward to
present day time, and you will rarely see this anymore. If you look at a childs Christmas list now
compared to when I was a child in the 90s, the toys being asked for has totally changed to
more electronic screen time gadgets. Playing outside is starting to become a thing in the past
with children spending more time inside leading to no physical activity.
My motive for this question of research was to explore how the way children play/do free
time has changed from when I was a child to present day. I seemed to find more on how
technology has caused harm on a childs health, in the way of becoming obese. What made me
more curious about this obesity issue in children was reading facts on how children are spending
almost 24hrs a week on screen time, i.e. Video games, computer playing or TV watching
(Anderson and Butcher 37).
This is a significant problem because the start of some bad habits, like eating/snacking
while watching TV or not getting barely any physical activity throughout the day, can lead to the
continuation of these habits. These habits could eventually lead to more serious health problems
once the child is older. Many people in the world today face the problem of obesity, so if we try
to tackle the problem in the early stages of life then it can help prevent the child from getting any
potential health problems later on like diabetes and heart issues. This will make a huge

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difference in not only the kids lives but the parents lives as well; it will help the kids get more
active and promote essential parenting skills while giving helpful advice. This particular research
inquiry question is significant because with technology rapidly being innovated and transformed,
more and more children in the future can become inactive and possibly overweight.
From my research and multiple sources I found, many have overall agreed that
technology is one of the causes of obesity in children. Technology has led to decreases in
physical activity and has increased bad eating habits. Anderson and Butcher writes in their
journal about a study done by William Dietz and Steven Gortmaker and reports that the
researchers found that each additional hour of television per day increased the prevalence of
obesity by 2 percent. They note that television viewing may affect weight in
several ways. First, it may squeeze out physical activity. Second, television
advertising may increase children's desire for, and ultimately their consumption
of, energy-dense snack foods. Third, watching television may go hand in hand
with snacking, leading to higher energy intake among children watching
television
I find this to be very true because in my experience of working at a daycare, I have seen children
who eat more whenever we had the TV playing a movie during lunch time. I also have seen
parents giving their phone or iPad when at dinner to keep them preoccupied and heard that some
kids cant eat without the TV being on. This is just causing the start of bad habits like overeating
and less inactivity in children that can honestly be prevented. From doing this research, I have
learned on how to help prevent this problem by finding advice for parents on this serious weight
issue. Some good advice I found was to increase physical activity in children by at least 30
minutes a day and then to decrease sedentary activity, like TV watching and video game playing,

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by at least 30 minutes as well (Spanier and Marshall and Faulkner 257). This made me want to
try to find more research on what the popular sedentary activities were back when I was a child
to what they are nowadays.
One very important source I found was one where we actually hear from the obese
children themselves instead of someone reporting on findings. In this article, the kids
participated in a phone interview about how they felt about physical education in school and how
they were treated by others. From this interview, 3 interesting themes that came up were, (1)
overweight students view physical education as having little to no benefit, (2)
overweight students possess a desire to become invisible during physical
education class, and (3) overweight students began to discover the potential
benefits of physical education as the interview progressed (Sean 36).
From this source, it made me realize that we cant only put the blame on the home environment,
but also on the school setting. I read where more and more physical education classes arent
being practiced at school, which can cause inactivity in the children while they are there
(Anderson and Butcher 35). Schools, whatever level of education, can influence what kind of
food and physical activity environments children/older kids can become accustomed to; therefore
prevention needs to be an important aspect of these institutes (Kar and Dube and Kar 90).
Whatever environment the child is in, they need the physical activity to help promote a healthier
lifestyle and encourage them to get out from behind those screens.
What I found to be the most persuasive/significant answer to my research question was
the source that explained the possible health risks from being obese. I believe that obesity is a
very serious topic and it should be addressed, in an encouraging reinforced way, to overweight
children. Facts have shown that being obese throughout childhood and the older kid stage can

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lead to the continuation of being obese once they reach adulthood. This can create potential for
obtaining a health issue associated with being obese. The last source I researched into discussed
a few health diseases that could be obtained while being overweight/obese. One quote from this
article that really stood out to me was, Obesity is linked to many of the major causes of death in
the United States, including heart disease, some types of cancer, strokes, diabetes, and
atherosclerosis (Himes 90). This really hit me because it made realize how serious obesity can
be. If we dont try to prevent this health issue in children then it just gives leeway for these
diseases to eventually take over their bodies.
This topic has really made me become more curious about obesity and the seriousness of
this issue. I have found out a lot but it has also raised more questions for me that I could
eventually begin to look further into that would expand my research inquiry. I still remain
curious as to how the amount of time spent inside/outside has changed over time in the past 20
years. I also would like to know what toys/gadgets are being asked for for birthdays/Christmas
by children compared to when I was a child. I feel like the best direction for that type of inquiry
would probably be to actually go out and survey a large amount of parents, both older and
younger parents to get the two different generations accounted for. The discoveries I made about
my research question has and will make a huge difference in both mine and my readers lives. It
will make them stop to think on how much physical activity that get themselves in a day and will
help to give important advice for parents of kids. These discoveries will definitely carry over
with me in the next few years when I am eventually starting my own family and becoming a
parent. I hope those that read this will become more informed on the problem of obesity and will
want to help prevent it from happening to both them and any future children.

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Works Cited
Anderson, Patricia M. and Butcher, Kristin F. Childhood Obesity: Trends and Potential
Causes. The Future of Children, Vol. 16, No. 1, (Spring, 2006), pp. 19-45
Gabrus, Sean L. "What Is The Perception Of Overweight Students Concerning Their
Experiences In Physical Education?." JOPERD: The Journal Of Physical Education,
Recreation & Dance 85.8 (2014): 46. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Himes, Christine L. "Obesity, Disease, And Functional Limitation In Later Life." Demography
37.1 (2000): 73-82. Print.
Kar, Subhranshu Sekhar, Rajani Dube, and Sitanshu Sekhar Kar. "Childhood Obesity-An Insight
Into Preventive Strategies." Avicenna Journal Of Medicine 4.4 (2014): 88-93. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.
Spanier, Paul A., Simon J. Marshall, and Guy E. Faulkner. "Tackling the Obesity Pandemic: A
Call for Sedentary Behaviour Research." Canadian Journal of Public Health 97.3
(2006): 255-57. Print.