Abstract :

Children today spend a good part of their day in front of some screen or another, and parents often wonder how much of an effect this really has on the way their kids eat. That question is what this study set out to answer. Fifty parents of children aged 5–14 years in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire as part of a cross-sectional descriptive study, and their answers were analysed using simple frequency and percentage calculations, then laid out in tables and graphs. What came out of the data was fairly consistent: television and mobile use both hovered around 1–2 hours a day for most children (36% and 32% respectively), and screen use was heaviest in the afternoon (56%) rather than morning or night. YouTube Shorts turned out to be the clear favourite among children (42%). Eating in front of a screen was the norm rather than the exception 34% of children always ate this way, and only 8% never did. Interestingly, when parents were asked why their children snack during screen time, taste (26%), hunger (24%) and habit (24%) came up far more often than advertisements (8%), which goes against the common assumption that ads are the main culprit. Nearly half the parents (46%) also mentioned that their child gets irritated if the screen is taken away mid-meal. Taken together, these findings suggest that screen time and snacking have become tightly woven into daily routine for many children in Meerut, and that the fix probably lies less in banning screens outright and more in building steadier mealtime habits and a bit more mindfulness around eating.

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Keywords :

Children, dietary habits, mobile phones, Screen time, snacking behaviour, television

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