The aim of the current work was to evaluate the effect of preschoolers' television (TV) watching time on the prevalence of obesity even after controlling for their total energy intake and their physical activity status. A representative sample of 2,374 Greek children aged 1–5 years was examined (“Growth, Exercise and Nutrition Epidemiological Study in preSchoolers”, GENESIS study). Children's TV watching time on a usual weekday and at a usual weekend was recorded. The overall mean of children's TV viewing time was 1.32 h/day. The majority of participants (74.0%) spent <2 h/day watching TV whereas only 3.1% spent >4 h/day in front of a TV set. Overall, 65.2% of participants were normal weight, 17.2% were overweight, and the rest 17.6% were obese. The prevalence of obesity was significantly higher among those with TV viewing time ≥2 h/day (21.7%) compared to those watching TV <2 h/day (16.1%, P = 0.003). TV viewing time remained significantly associated with the likelihood of being obese even after controlling for potential confounders (i.e., socio demographic and other characteristics and physical activity status) only among children aged 3–5 years. However, further adjusting for children's total energy intake revealed that the association between the TV viewing time and the probability of being obese was no longer statistically significant. On the other hand, physical activity status continued to be an independent factor of being obese. The current findings support the hypothesis that the effect of TV viewing time on childhood obesity is independent of physical activity status and may be attributed to the increased total energy intake during TV watching.

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Objective: The current paper aims to describe the characteristics of mothers failing to initiate breast-feeding, provide information on the factors contributing to longer duration of breast-feeding and identify the association of maternal obesity with both initiation and duration of breast-feeding in the Greek population. Design: Data from the cross-sectional GENESIS (Growth, Exercise and Nutrition Epidemiological Study In preSchoolers) study were used. Mothers were categorized by their pre-pregnancy BMI and their gestational weight gain according to guidelines from the Institute of Medicine. Setting: Preschool children aged 1-5 years in five counties in Greece. Subjects: Preschoolers (n 2374) with full maternal anthropometric data before and during pregnancy and breast-feeding data.Results: A higher percentage of mothers with increased pre-pregnancy BMI or high gestational weight gain failed to initiate breast-feeding compared with their normal-weight counterparts. Obese mothers were 2?86 times more likely to fail in initiating breast-feeding in a multiple logistic regression model. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that among women initiating breast-feeding, those who were either underweight before pregnancy or smoked at the third trimester of pregnancy breast-fed their children for about 1?5 weeks less than their normal-weight or non-smoking counterparts, respectively. Similarly, multiparous women breast-fed their children for about 7 weeks less than uniparous women. In women who initiated breast-feeding, no significant differences in breast-feeding duration were found between women of different gestational weight gains. Conclusions: Mothers with high pre-pregnancy BMI are less likely to initiate breast-feeding while high gestational weight gain has no effect on either the initiation or duration of breast-feeding in Greece. Keywords Breast-feedingObesity Greece Gestational weight gain The benefits of breast-feeding for the health and well-being of infants have been well recognized (1)(2)(3)(4) . However in most industrialized countries, including Greece, the percentage of mothers following the recommended breast-feeding practices is far from that desired (5)(6)(7)(8)(9) . As recent studies in local cohorts in Greece have shown, although more than 90 % of women initiate breast-feeding (5,10) , only 16?0 % of mothers provide any breast-feeding at 6 months postpartum (5) and only 7?3 % breast-feed for more than 1 year (11)

In this work, the part of the squash core collection, maintained in the Greek

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