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WORLD / Health
Childhood TV viewing causes teenage problems
(Reuters)
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Sports / China
Men's gymnasts?eye gold rush
(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-05 10:22
Stuttgart - China looks set to surpass its gold-medal haul at last year's
worlds as Yang Wei fired the 2008 Olympic hosts into pole position ahead
of the Hiroyuki Tomita-inspired Japanese during men's qualifying at the
world gymnastics championships on Monday.
Yang was the most successful man in Aarhus, Denmark, last year when he
won three of his country's eight gold medals - the team, all-round and
parallel bar titles.
Yang Wei of China competes on the parallel bars during the all-around
team competition at the 40th World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in
Stuttgart September 3, 2007. [Reuters]
And the defending champions could do better this time in the qualifying
event for the Beijing Games.
The 27-year-old Yang leads 2005 all-round champion Tomita, who had to
settle for individual silver last year, with Japan's Hisashi Mizutori in
third position overall.
Yang scored 93.925 with Tomita achieving 93.625 and Mizutori 92.575.
European champion Maxim Deviatovski, in fourth, carries the hopes of
Russia, which was hit by leg injuries to key gymnasts Nikolai Kruykov and
Anton Golotsutskov.
The Chinese team scored a combined 374.275 points with Japan achieving
370.725 and Russia (362.175).
Romania, the United States and Germany compete on Tuesday.
But the battle looks set to be between the two Asian nations.
Tomita gave warning that he intends to turn the tables on Yang who
trailed in second during last year's qualifiers but took the title.
But Chinese head coach Huang Yubin was pleased with his side's opening
day.
"In general, I think the Chinese team did a good job today. But on some
individual apparatus, we still made some mistakes.
"Some mistakes are acceptable for the world championships.
"The most important for us is that we clinched the top places in the
individual categories. But it's only qualifying. Some tough competition
is waiting for us at the moment. Anything can happen in the finals."
China has the chance of claiming four apparatus gold with defending
champions Yang and Xiao Qin leading the parallel bars and pommel horse
respectively, Zou Kai on floor, and Cheng Yibing, the rings.
Japan dominated the high bar.
Mizutori scored highest ahead of Tomita and Shun Kuwahara. Only two
competitors per country can advance to the final.
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Updated: 2007-09-05 09:44
CHICAGO -- Watching television more than two hours a day early in life
can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study
released on Tuesday.
Two men chat in front of flat screens at an exhibition stand of the IFA
2007 consumer electronics fair in Berlin, August 30, 2007. [Reuters]
The roughly 40 percent increase in attention problems among heavy TV
viewers was observed in both boys and girls, and was independent of
whether a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was made
prior to adolescence.
The link was established by a long-term study of the habits and behaviors
of more than 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April
1972 and March 1973.
The children aged 5 to 11 watched an average of 2.05 hours of weekday
television. From age 13 to 15, time spent in front of the tube rose to an
average of 3.1 hours a day.
"Those who watched more than two hours, and particularly those who
watched more than three hours, of television per day during childhood had
above-average symptoms of attention problems in adolescence," Carl
Landhuis of the University of Otago in Dunedin wrote in his report,
published in the journal Pediatrics.
Young children who watched a lot of television were more likely to
continue the habit as they got older, but even if they did not the damage
was done, the report said.
"This suggests that the effects of childhood viewing on attention may be
long lasting," Landhuis wrote.
Landhuis offered several possible explanations for the association.
One was that the rapid scene changes common to many TV programs may over
stimulate the developing brain of a young child, and could make reality
seem boring by comparison.
"Hence, children who watch a lot of television may become less tolerant
of slower-paced and more mundane tasks, such as school work," he wrote.
It was also possible that TV viewing may supplant other activities that
promote concentration, such as reading, games, sports and play, he said.
The lack of participation inherent in TV watching might also condition
children when it comes to other activities.
The study was not proof that TV viewing causes attention problems,
Landhuis said, because it may be that children prone to attention
problems may be drawn to watching television.
"However, our results show that the net effect of television seems to be
adverse," he wrote.
Previous studies have linked the sedentary habit of TV watching among
children to obesity and diabetes, and another study in the same journal
cited the poor nutritional content of the overwhelming majority of food
products advertised on the top-rated US children's television shows.
Up to 98 percent of the TV ads promoting food products that were directed
at children aged 2 through 11 "were high in either fat, sugar, or
sodium," wrote Lisa Powell of the University of Illinois in Chicago.
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