Relationship between parental estimate and an objective measure of child television watching

Many young children have televisions in their bedrooms, which may influence the relationship between parental estimate and objective measures of child television usage/week. Parental estimates of child television time of eighty 4-7 year old children (6.0 +/- 1.2 years) at the 75th BMI percentile or greater (90.8 +/- 6.8 BMI percentile) were compared to an objective measure of television time obtained from TV Allowance devices attached to every television in the home over a three week period. Results showed that parents overestimate their child's television time compared to an objective measure when no television is present in the bedroom by 4 hours/week (25.4 +/- 11.5 vs. 21.4 +/- 9.1) in comparison to underestimating television time by over 3 hours/week (26.5 +/- 17.2 vs. 29.8 +/- 14.4) when the child has a television in their bedroom (p = 0.02). Children with a television in their bedroom spend more objectively measured hours in television time than children without a television in their bedroom (29.8 +/- 14.2 versus 21.4 +/- 9.1, p = 0.003). Research on child television watching should take into account television watching in bedrooms, since it may not be adequately assessed by parental estimates.