According to a new research, increasing the number of hours of watching Television by children could affect their athletic ability in adulthood.

The study that was conducted in Canada showed that every extra hour of Television per week add half a millimetre to waist circumference and reduce muscle fitness in children. Researchers looked at data from TV habits of 1,314 children.

It is recommended that children should not watch more than two hours of Tv in a day. It was found that the average amount of television watched by the children at the beginning was was 8.8 hours a week.

The average increased by six hours over the next two years to reach 14.8 hours a week for children of th age of four-and-a-half.

Parenst of about 15 per cent of the children said that their children were watching more than 18 hours per week by that age during a week. An extra weekly hour of TV can decrease the distance a child is able to jump from standing by 0.36cm, the study said.

The findings of the study have been published in BioMed Central journal.