[ti:WHO: Too Much Screen Time Bad for Children] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.28]The World Health Organization (WHO) [00:04.60]has released its first ever guidance [00:07.96]on how much time young children should spend [00:12.16]using electronic devices with screens. [00:17.44]On Wednesday, WHO announced [00:20.64]that children under five years old [00:24.08]should not spend more than one hour a day [00:28.46]watching such devices. [00:31.28]Less than that is better, officials say, [00:35.03]and children under age one [00:38.16]should not get any screen time at all. [00:43.08]"What we are cautioning on is over-use [00:46.52]of those electronic screen times with young children," [00:50.40]WHO expert Fiona Bull told reporters. [00:55.64]The new guidelines are somewhat similar [00:58.67]to advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics. [01:03.88]That group recommends children younger than 18 months [01:09.18]should avoid screens other than video conferences over the internet. [01:15.00]It says parents of children under age two [01:19.04]should choose "high-quality programming" [01:22.76]with educational value. [01:25.84]Boys and girls should be able to watch the program [01:30.48]with a parent and understand what they are seeing. [01:36.16]The guidelines say that children under five [01:40.24]should also be physically active and get enough sleep [01:45.44]to help develop good lifelong behaviors. [01:50.24]This will help prevent diseases in later life. [01:54.84]"In this age group of under-5s, it is currently [01:59.20]40 million children around the world (who) are overweight. [02:05.32]Of that (figure) 50 percent are in Africa [02:09.60]and the southeast Asia region," Bull said. [02:13.62]The Reuters news agency says that number [02:17.54]represents 5.9 percent of all children worldwide. [02:24.17]Early childhood is a period of fast physical [02:29.36]and mental development during which behaviors are formed [02:34.64]and ways of doing things can be changed, noted WHO. [02:41.12]Its guidelines come from evidence in hundreds of studies, [02:45.76]many from Australia, Canada, South Africa and the United States. [02:53.92]"Sedentary behaviors, whether riding motorized transport [02:58.97]rather than walking or cycling, sitting at a desk in school, [03:04.20]watching TV or playing inactive screen-based games" [03:10.40]are increasingly common, WHO said. [03:15.32]It added that such behaviors have been linked to poor health. [03:21.64]Some groups said WHO's screen time guidelines [03:26.84]failed to consider the possible benefits of electronic media. [03:33.76]Andrew Przybylski is director of research [03:37.56]at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. [03:44.08]He told the Associated Press that WHO's screen time advice [03:50.64]deals too much with the amount of screen time. [03:54.84]He said it fails to consider the quality [03:58.21]of the material being watched or how it is being used. [04:04.80]"Not all screen time is created equal," said Przybylski. [04:11.08]Britain's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health [04:15.68]said the study data available was too weak [04:19.84]to permit its experts to set any measure [04:23.72]for the best level of screen time. [04:27.76]Max Davie is the college's Officer for Health Improvement. [04:33.36]He told the AP the restricted screen time limits [04:38.29]suggested by WHO [04:41.08]do not seem proportionate to the possible harm done. [04:47.08]WHO did not go into much detail about the possible harm [04:53.12]caused by too much screen time. [04:56.68]But the guidelines did note that lack of sleep in children [05:01.88]has been linked with increases in extra fat [05:06.16]as measured by body mass index. [05:10.68]Shorter periods spent sleeping has been linked [05:14.72]with more time spent watching television [05:18.60]and playing computer games, it added. [05:22.76]I'm Dorothy Gundy. [05:25.64]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM