Survey: Bucharest first graders eat sweets as often as fruits, vegetables, chat with friends half an hour a day

Three quarters of first graders in Bucharest eat breakfast every day during the week, and almost all during weekends, but they eat sweets almost as often as fruits and vegetables, according to a recent study by the Prais foundation and GfK Romania. Children eat fruits 8.6 times a week, vegetables, seven times a week, and sweets, 7.9 times a week, according to the poll.

First graders drink on average four glasses of water per day, while they drink sweet, carbonated soft drinks on average three times a week. Around half of the first graders in Bucharest spend two hours a day on average in front of the TV during the week, and three hours a day during weekends. More worryingly, one third of them spend more than four hours a day in front of the TV/DVD/video during weekends. Access to technology is high, as three quarters of the polled children have one or two computers with internet access in their household. Individual study tales two and a half hours every day, while chatting with friends on social networks takes half an hour a day irrespective of work day or weekend. However, they spend more time with family than on the computer, and still a lot more time on sleeping, school and individual study. The study also found that 70 percent of the polled first graders eat three main meals a day, and half eat between meals as well. More than half of them eat at least once a day fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat. The study also shows that 40 percent of first graders exercise every day, walk outdoors, play with other children, and more than half exercise two to three times a week. The average income of a household in Bucharest is RON 2,959 – or EUR 664. The survey was carried out between December 2012 and January 2013 on 677 parents of children in the first grade in 30 schools in Bucharest. The margin of error is plus/minus 3.77 percent. editor@romania-insider.com (photo source: sxc.hu)