Date created: | Last Updated:

Category: Project

Description: Screen-based media plays an omnipresent role in the daily life of children but has been previously linked to increased sedentary behaviours, unfavourable dietary patterns, and adiposity. Effects of screen time on sleep, mental health, physical activity, and diet may therefore lead to a change in body composition increasing metabolic risk in children. As screen time habits are often formed in early ages later affecting childhood, adolescence and adulthood, it is likely that the body composition at age seven is associated with the development of screen time habits between the ages three to seven. No previous studies have investigated the prospective association of trajectories of screen time development on body composition in children. Information on this relationship is crucial to reduce metabolic risk in children by using interventions targeting screen time development. This study aims to investigate the prospective association of trajectories of screen time over three time points at age three, five, and seven with imaging-measured body composition in the Odense Child Cohort. Furthermore, we carry out a secondary analysis determining the cross-sectional association of screen time and body composition at age seven.