Background: Maternal education is consistently found to be inversely related to children’s television viewing and is associated with aspects of the family television environment. This study investigates whether family television environment mediates the relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing.
Methods: Parents of 1484 children reported maternal education, time their child spends watching television, and 21 aspects of the family television environment (potential mediators) during 2002 and 2003. Separate regression analyses were conducted in 2006 for each potential mediator that met two initial conditions for mediation (associated with both maternal education and children’s television viewing (p<0.10)), to assess whether inclusion reduced the association between maternal education and children’s television viewing. Multivariable regression assessed the combined impact of all mediators.
Results: Twelve of 21 potential mediators met the initial conditions for mediation. Inclusion of each resulted in decreased β values (3.2% to 15.2%) for the association between maternal education and television viewing. Number and placement of televisions in the home appeared to have the greatest mediating effect, followed by frequency of eating dinner in front of the television with the child and rules about television viewing during mealtimes. Together, the 12 mediators accounted for more than one-third of the association between maternal education and children’s television viewing time.
Conclusions: This study suggests the strong inverse relationship between maternal education and children’s television viewing is partly mediated by aspects of the family television environment.
History
Journal
American journal of preventive medicine
Volume
33
Pagination
41 - 47
Location
New York, NY.
Open access
Yes
ISSN
0749-3797
eISSN
1873-2607
Language
eng
Publication classification
C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
Copyright notice
Reproduced with the specific permission of the copyright owner.