Doubly vindicated

Two reports in two days have confirmed many of my prejudices about the dangers of TV.

The first, in yesterday's Times (19 Feb) was about research linking watching TV from an early age with various health problems including obesity, and premature puberty in girls (this regardless, of course, of the quality of the programming). "Watching too much television as a child may trigger serious health problems such as autism and obesity, and in girls the early onset of puberty, a scientist has claimed. "

The second, reported on the BBC News WWW site today (20 Feb) was about the dangers of the sexualisation of young girls: "The consequences of the sexualisation of girls in media today are very real," said Dr Eileen Zurbriggen, chair of the group and associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz."

This second obviously includes many other media, especially the dreadful teen magazines, but for younger girls TV is probably the prime culprit.

Two more reasons to opt out of the prevalent culture and bring your kids up with your values, not those of the media, advertisers and other exploiters and corrupters of kids!