Limiting TV/computer time to less than 2 hours a night,  family dinners (5 or more times a week) and getting a good night’s sleep (at least 10.5 hrs of sleep) lessen a child’s risk for obesity a new study found. The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, looked at data collected in 2005 on over 8,500 four year olds and found that children were 40% less likely to develop obesity if those three routines were followed.

Even when other considerations for obesity were factored in, (race/ethnicity, maternal obesity, maternal education, household income and single-parent households) the researchers found that each of the above routines helped lower the risk of childhood obesity. The more routines followed, the less chance of obesity. Interestingly, none of the routines was better than the other.

The study was published on-line in the journal Pediatrics. You can access the abstract at this link.