Mediators of the Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children’s TV Viewing

doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2007.02.039

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Volume 33, Issue 1, July 2007, Pages 41-47

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2007.02.039 Get rights and content

Background

Maternal education is consistently found to be inversely related to children’s television viewing and is associated with aspects of the family television environment. This study investigates whether family television environment mediates the relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing.

Methods

Parents of 1484 children reported maternal education, time their child spends watching television, and 21 aspects of the family television environment (potential mediators) during 2002 and 2003. Separate regression analyses were conducted in 2006 for each potential mediator that met two initial conditions for mediation (associated with both maternal education and children’s television viewing (p<0.10)), to assess whether inclusion reduced the association between maternal education and children’s television viewing. Multivariable regression assessed the combined impact of all mediators.

Results

Twelve of 21 potential mediators met the initial conditions for mediation. Inclusion of each resulted in decreased β values (3.2% to 15.2%) for the association between maternal education and television viewing. Number and placement of televisions in the home appeared to have the greatest mediating effect, followed by frequency of eating dinner in front of the television with the child and rules about television viewing during mealtimes. Together, the 12 mediators accounted for more than one-third of the association between maternal education and children’s television viewing time.

Conclusions

This study suggests the strong inverse relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing is partly mediated by aspects of the family television environment.

Introduction

Children’s high levels of television viewing are associated with a range of negative social and health effects including aggressive behavior,1, 2 poor school achievement,² social problems,² poor self-rated health,³ consumption of high-energy drinks and snacks,⁴ low fruit consumption,⁴ lack of participation in organized physical activity,⁴ and overweight.⁵ In an attempt to reduce such negative effects, it has been recommended that parents limit the amount of time their children spend watching television.6, 7, 8 However, some parents may be better equipped than others to act on such recommendations. For example, maternal education level is consistently found to be inversely associated with children’s television viewing.9, 10, 11

Maternal education also appears to be related to certain aspects of the family television environment.¹¹ The social ecologic model proposed by Davison and Birch¹² provides a useful framework for investigating influences on health-related behaviors such as television viewing. According to this model, the family television environment can include both the physical (number and location of televisions) and the social environments (rules and practices associated with television viewing) within the family home. Maternal education has been found to be inversely associated with a child having a television in his or her bedroom and to be positively associated with parental concern about the amount of time their child spends watching television.¹¹ Further, aspects of the family television environment, including frequency of families watching television together,¹⁰ mealtime television viewing,10, 13 parents’ television viewing habits,⁹ and having a television in the child’s bedroom⁹ have also been found to be associated with children’s viewing time.

This study aims to develop a greater understanding of the relationships between maternal education, the family television environment, and the amount of time children spend watching television. Specifically, aspects of the family television environment that may mediate the relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing time will be investigated. By developing an understanding of the potential mediators, we will be better able to tailor interventions targeting mothers with lower levels of education, which aim to reduce television viewing and its associated consequences.

Section snippets

Sample

The sample consists of 1484 families involved in the Health, Eating and Play Study, conducted from 2002 to 2003. This study employed a stratified random sampling technique to select schools for participation in the study. All government and Catholic elementary schools in suburban Melbourne, Australia with a total enrollment exceeding 200 students were classified into socioeconomic status (SES) quintiles using the Australian Bureau of Statistics Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas Index of Relative

Measures

All data were provided by the child’s main caregiver who completed a questionnaire at home. Respondents provided information on their own and, where applicable, their partner/co-caregiver’s highest level of schooling. The six response options were condensed to three levels of education: less than secondary school (never attended school, primary school, some high school), secondary school (completed high school, technical or trade school certificate/apprenticeship) and post-secondary (university

Analyses

Children’s gender is consistently found to be unrelated to television viewing,⁹ whereas it appears that older children may watch more television than younger children.⁹ These associations were observed in the current sample (independent samples t test for gender, p=0.37; and for age group, p<0.001), therefore, data were analyzed for the sample as a whole and separately for younger (grade prep) and older (grade 5–6) children. To account for the cluster-based sampling, all analyses included

Results

Characteristics of the 1484 children in the sample are presented in Table 2. In both age groups, the sample was distributed across area-level SES and maternal education categories, providing a socioeconomically diverse sample. Mean daily television viewing for the total sample exceeded 3 hours and was higher in older than younger children. Only four children in the entire sample spent an average of 2 hours or less per day watching television and thus potentially met the Australian guidelines

Discussion

Children in this study generally spent more time watching television than the 2 hours per day recommended by current guidelines.⁸ Consistent with previous research,9, 10, 11 children whose mothers had attained lower levels of education tended to spend more time watching television than those whose mothers had higher levels of education. This study suggests that the strong inverse relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing is partly mediated by certain aspects of

Conclusion

The findings of this study have important implications for the development of interventions or public health messages aimed at reducing television viewing time and its associated consequences, in children from low maternal-level education families. As maternal education is often considered a proxy for family socioeconomic status, these findings may be able to be generalized to families facing other forms of socioeconomic disadvantage (e.g., those where parents have low incomes or low

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Research articleMediators of the Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children’s TV Viewing

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Introduction

Section snippets

Sample

Measures

Analyses

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

J Pediatr

Contributors to violent behaviour among elementary and middle school children

Pediatrics

Behavioral correlates of television viewing in primary school children evaluated by the child behavior checklist

Arch Pediatr Adol Med

Sociodemographic, developmental, environmental, and psychological correlates of physical activity and sedentary behaviour at age 11 to 12

Ann Behav Med

Television viewing habits associated with obesity risk factors: a survey of Melbourne schoolchildren

Med J Aust

Do we fatten our children at the television set?Obesity and television viewing in children and adolescents

Pediatrics

Children, adolescents and television

Pediatrics

The effects of television on child health: implications and recommendations

Arch Dis Child

Australia’s physical activity recommendations for 5–12 year olds

Couch kids: correlates of television viewing among youth

Int J Behav Med

Research article
Mediators of the Relationship Between Maternal Education and Children’s TV Viewing