[Reading-For-Healthy-Families] Article: Pediatricians Should Promote Reading, Media Literacy, Study Says

[Katie Anderson]

Hello!  I just finished reading Library Hotline and found one article well-worth sharing.

As we discuss during RFHF Training Session Two, the culture of poverty often values media. In addition, many high-risk families use media as one of many tools to help themselves stay clean & sober or deal with other issues that help keep their family safe.  Therefore asking parents to turn media off or reduce their use of it may have negative connotations.

Here are 4 quotes from the article that I found particularly interesting.  The last of the four quotes below explains that the AAP is asking pediatricians to help parents and children to use media more thoughtfully, not necessarily to turn it off completely.


*         8- to 18-year-olds now spend more than seven hours a day on televisions, computers, video game consoles and even radios

*         The American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) isn't only concerned about the cumulative amount of media children are now exposed to but its long term effects, ranging from obesity to poor achievement in school.

*         Pediatricians are now advised to suggest that children's bedrooms be "electronic media-free" areas and that parents model this behavior as well.

*         ...the organization is asking its members to step up their assessment of young patients, hopeful that more vigilance will lead parents and children to more thoughtfully consider what media they choose to engage with-and how.

You can read the article online at http://tiny.cc/n1t4a and read the study the article is based on at http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf, and I've also cut and pasted the article at the bottom of this email.


Katie Anderson, Library Development Services
* Youth Services Consultant * Oregon Center for the Book Coordinator *
Oregon State Library, 250 Winter St. NE, Salem, OR 97301
katie.anderson at state.or.us<mailto:katie.anderson at state.or.us>, 503-378-2528


Pediatricians Should Promote Reading, Media Literacy, Study Says

By Lauren Barack October 26, 2010

Doctors need to follow their own rules when it comes to media use among children and promote reading and educational toys in their waiting rooms--instead of TV and videos.

So says new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics<http://www.aap.org/> (AAP), which also calls on pediatricians to educate themselves about the risks of too much media exposure in children and ask parents how much of it their children digest daily.

"Pediatricians need to become educated about the public health risks of media," say the study's authors in a new policy statement<http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2010-1636v1>. "Given the impact that media have on the health of children and adolescents, AAP chapters and districts, as well as medical schools and residency training programs, should ensure that ongoing education in this area is a high priority."

The AAP notes that 8- to 18-year-olds now spend more than seven hours a day on televisions, computers, video game consoles and even radios, quoting a 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation study<http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf>.

The AAP isn't only concerned about the cumulative amount of media children are now exposed to but its long term effects, ranging from obesity to poor achievement in school. To that end, the organization is asking its members to step up their assessment of young patients, hopeful that more vigilance will lead parents and children to more thoughtfully consider what media they choose to engage with-and how.

Pediatricians are now advised to suggest that children's bedrooms be "electronic media-free" areas and that parents model this behavior as well. The AAP also wants Congress to fund media literacy courses in schools aimed at kids, stating that the federal government should "dramatically increase their funding for media research" to ensure all students make positive choices in what media they consume-as well as understand the context of what those messages mean.

"Media education has the potential to reduce harmful media effects," writes the AAP. "In the past 2 centuries, to be "literate" meant that a person could read and write. In the new millennium, to be "literate" means that a person can successfully understand and decode a variety of different media. Given the volume of information transmitted through mass media as opposed to the written word, it is now as important to teach media literacy as it is to teach print literacy."



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