TV can raise blood pressure in obese children

Obese children who watch a lot of television are more likely to have high blood pressure than heavy children who don't spend as much time in front of the tube, the results of a new study shows.Increased psychological stress and junk food eaten while watching TV could be factors in the relationship, principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey B. Schwimmer of the University of California, San Diego, told Reuters Health.Obese children who watched 2 to 4 hours of TV each day were 2.5 times more likely than their peers who watched less TV to have high blood pressure, he and his colleagues found, while kids who watched more than 4 hours daily had more than triple the risk of having high blood pressure.