Is it good for children to eat while watching TV or phone?

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Nowadays, parents often let their children eat while watching TV and phones. Because when children focus on watching, parents can feed children easily and eat more. Eating while watching the phone causes stomach pain and will form bad habits, making children refuse to eat if they can't watch TV or phones.

1. Harm of children watching TV and phone while eating

Many parents have a habit of feeding their children by letting them watch entertainment programs or cartoons on TV, phones, and tablets. Perhaps because when watching TV, children will lose focus on eating, parents will easily feed children and children will eat more. So is it good to eat while watching TV? In fact, this habit of children not only has no benefits but also causes many harms to the health and development of children.
The following are the harmful effects of eating while watching TV or mobile phone:
Increased risk of obesity
Many studies have reported that eating while watching TV or mobile phone has a risk of obesity, especially is in young children. With the habit of eating while watching, children tend to snack when watching TV or phone in addition to the main meals. This is the most common harm of children watching TV or phone while eating.
Eating while watching TV or on the phone will make children not realize when they feel full. Because the whole child's attention has been absorbed by the TV shows. When the "fullness signal" in the brain is disabled, children will tend to eat more than they actually need, leading to uncontrolled weight gain, causing obesity. In addition, most TV commercials or interstitial ads viewed on mobile phones are related to food, mainly fast food and prepackaged foods. These products are eye-catching, appearing many times will make children interested and want to try them. These are unhealthy, high-calorie foods that increase the risk of childhood obesity. In addition, sitting watching TV or phone for many hours also slows down the body's metabolic rate, making food digested more slowly, leading to the accumulation of fat in the abdomen, making children gain weight. obesity risk.
Loss of appetite
When eating while watching TV, children will no longer pay attention to the food to enjoy the taste. Watching TV or on the phone while eating is like putting food into a vending machine with no sensation. This habit will cause children to be distracted, causing their taste and appetite to gradually decrease, leading to anorexia. Therefore, at the end of the day, children will feel hungry and tend to eat more. Although parents feed their children a lot, in the end children still do not feel happy and satisfied when eating delicious food.
Digestive disorders
Children who eat while watching TV or phones can adversely affect the ability to digest food. Eating while watching TV programs dims the signals from the brain to the stomach. This makes the stomach not secrete enough gastric juice and digestive enzymes, making food not digested properly and the body also more difficult to absorb nutrients. Over time, the child's digestive system will be disturbed, the lack of nutrients can easily cause many other health problems.

Causes many diseases
Children while eating while looking at the phone cause stomach pain is a very common problem. Because this habit will increase blood flow to the brain and reduce blood flow to the stomach, it cannot support the stomach in digesting food. The food that has not been fully digested will remain and become an ideal environment for bacteria to multiply, causing many diseases in the stomach and intestines such as gastritis, intestinal inflammation.
Besides, children who are addicted to watching too many programs on TV or on the phone will no longer be interested in participating in physical activities, leading to overweight, obesity and causing metabolic disorders. such as childhood diabetes.
Affects nerves
Many programs on TV and mobile phones contain negative information that is not suitable for young children, making them anxious, nervous, and afraid. Gradually getting used to the accelerated flow of information causes a child's nervous system to be severely affected.
Weakened brain activity
With regular eating and watching programs on TV or on the phone for a long time, children's brain activity will begin to decline. This habit adversely affects children, causing loss of concentration, reduced intelligence, poor memory and reduced ability to make decisions correctly and quickly. Research shows that 2-year-olds who watch TV for 3 hours a day have great difficulty concentrating and learning new information.
Lack of interaction with family members as well as in society
If children have a habit of watching phones or TV while eating, they will have less conversation with their parents. reduces the bond between family members. Moreover, watching TV, too much mobile phone makes children mentally and physically stagnant, reduces social activities, reduces communication with other children. This can be a risk factor for neuropsychiatric diseases such as depression in children.
Hyperactivity in children
Harm of watching TV or mobile phones for children is increased hyperactivity. The news, images or videos of action and violence make children tend to imitate heroic characters, causing accidents and injuries to children.
Vision problems
Children who spend too much time sitting in front of a TV or phone screen, causing their eyes to have to adjust a lot, can lead to refractive errors and vision disorders, most commonly nearsightedness and astigmatism.

2. How to avoid and modify the habit of eating while watching TV, on the phone

2.1 When starting to introduce solid foods, parents should patiently coax the baby to eat, do not use TV, phone or tablet to attract the child's attention. Parents should also not use the phone while feeding the child so that the child understands that this is the time to eat, not to do other things. Each feeding session should last about 15 to 30 minutes. Let your children cook in the kitchen with their mother to make them feel more excited when eating the food they make. Let children eat together with the whole family to form healthy eating habits and create a connection between members. 2.2 For children who are used to eating while watching TV or phone. Parents can help children change this bad habit. At first, the baby will get angry and fussy but then they will get used to it and learn to eat without watching TV or the phone. Here are some ways to correct the habit of eating while watching the phone, TV of children:
Parents need to make sure that their children are hungry so that they can focus on eating. This means that parents should not let children eat a lot of snacks or drink soft drinks before the time of main meals. Also, do not place snacks near the main meal. If the child is hungry, the child will no longer care if he can watch TV or the phone or not. In the first time when learning to adjust this habit, parents should let the child eat while watching TV or phone for 5 minutes, then move out. If the child is fussy because he is not eating enough, parents can continue to feed the child but do not let the child watch TV. Parents can also set a rule with children that when eating dinner, do not watch TV or phone. If the child still wants to watch, when the meal is finished, it will be open for the child to see for a certain period of time. Family members, especially parents, must eat meals together with children and not watch TV. Only in this way can children easily fix the habit of eating while watching TV or phone. Giving up the habit of watching TV while eating for children is not easy. If you have applied all the above measures and your child still cannot make changes, parents should consult a doctor for help. Therefore, it is best not to form this habit for children in the first place.

For children to be healthy and develop well, it is necessary to have a nutritious diet in terms of quantity and quality balance. If children are not provided with adequate and balanced nutrients, it will lead to diseases of excess or lack of nutrients, which adversely affect the comprehensive development of children in terms of physical, mental and motor skills.
Children who do not eat properly are at risk of micro-mineral deficiency causing anorexia, growth retardation, malabsorption,... If they notice the above signs, parents should supplement their children with products. The supplement contains lysine, essential micro-minerals and vitamins such as zinc, chromium, selenium, and B vitamins to help fully meet the nutritional needs of children. At the same time, these essential vitamins also support digestion, enhance nutrient absorption, help improve anorexia, and help children eat well.
Parents can learn more:
Signs of zinc deficiency in children
Micronutrient deficiency and failure to gain weight in children
Please regularly visit Vinmec.com website and update useful information to take care of your child. Take care of the baby and the whole family.