SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) - Even though overweight children in a new study spent similar amounts of time snacking in front of the television as thinner kids, they were more likely to munch on high-calorie, high-fat foods, a factor that undoubtedly contributed to their weight problems, researchers report.

In the study of 186 girls who were assessed from ages 5 to 9, investigators found that while overall the girls spent an average of about 1.5 hours a day watching television and snacked with similar frequency, those youngsters who consumed the most cookies, chips and other junk food while they watched the tube tended to be overweight and to have at least one parent who also was overweight.

"This is saying it's not just television-watching per se, but what the kids are eating, so parents should think about the snacks their kids are having while they are watching TV," study author Leann Birch, a researcher at Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania, told Reuters Health.

In doing so, parents could have a big impact on the health of their children and themselves as well, since bad dietary habits are often a family-wide problem, she said.

In the study, reported here Sunday at a nutrition conference organized by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition and other medical groups, the researchers also found that girls were most likely to gain excess weight between ages 5 and 9 if they had a parent who was overweight.

Healthy snacks include apples, grapes, carrot and celery sticks, and unbuttered popcorn.

Birch noted that even when children don't snack on junk food in front of the television, they still may tend to gain weight because they are sitting still rather than getting physical activity that would help them burn off excess calories.

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