In other words, sports participation may actually discourage some children from being physically active.

Another current intervention is to reduce the amount of time that a child spends in front of a screen of some sort. Screens, whether computer screens, video game screens, or television screens all encourage children to be passive recipients of entertainment, rather than active players in a game of some sort. What is fascinating is that merely aiming to reduce screen time seems to be sufficient to help increase child health. The Stanford Student Media Awareness to Reduce Television (SMART) classroom program aimed at reducing children's screen time, but did not promote a substitute physical activity for that reduced screen time (Robinson, 1999). Simply reducing screen time was linked to reduced BMI, reduced body fat, and reduced waist circumference (Robinson, 1999). Presumably, this positive impact of reduced screen time comes as the result of two factors....
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