How much time should my child spend watching TV?

The Kids - 'Go for your life' resource It's Child Play (Go for your life, 2008) details the amount of time children should spend watching television or playing computer games: 

Sedentary behaviour, or inactivity, is time spent on tasks requiring minimal energy expenditure. Many different types of sedentary behaviour exist. For example in older children, sedentary behaviour can be productive (homework, sensible sleeping hours) and non-productive (electronic games and long unnecessary sleep-ins). Reducing sedentary behaviour can provide more time for physical activity. Activities involving ’screens’ are the most common forms of sedentary behaviour and include television, DVDs, console games, computers and hand-held electronic games.

Children between the ages of 5-12 should limit their ‘screen time’ to no more than 2 hours a day.

Watching too much television is often linked closely with obesity in children.

Generally, when children are watching television, they are not being active and are more likely to see food advertisements that encourage them to eat and drink, regardless of hunger.