Media blitz:

It is more undeniable than ever that TV fries the brain. It also attacks the body. In the most sweeping review yet, researchers at Yale, the National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Centre examined 173 studies since 1980 and have tied media exposure — including video games and the Internet — to smoking, drugs, early sex, attention deficit, and physical ailments including obesity. American youth spend an average of 45 hours a week with media, compared with 30 hours in school and 17 with parents. Negative effects start with eight hours a week of exposure.

The NIH bioethics chairman Ezekiel Emanuel said in an interview that children should not sit in front of screens before age 2, and preferably not before reading age, 5 or 6. After that, exposure should be no more than one hour a day. Parents must compensate by encouraging imaginary play, sports, musical instruments, and crafts.

There is a tantalizing chance such findings may finally go beyond pediatricians and children’s advocates. Emanuel happens to be a brother of Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff for President-elect Barack Obama. A top applause line from candidate Obama was “government can’t turn off the TV,” and he is right. Obama and his government must make media overexposure a public health issue. — International Herald Tribune