Deborah Netburn

Junior high students are having trouble turning away from the television. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control found that watching TV is a daily habit for close to all middle school age students in America.

It's not surprising that most children watch television every day, but even so, the numbers are staggering.

Researchers from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics found that in 2012, 98.5% of children between the ages of 12 and 15 said they had watched television every day for the last 30 days. The percentage of children that spent time in front of a computer every day was slightly smaller -- "just" 91%. But it's not the percentage of children that are looking at screens each day that is worrying public health advocates -- it's how much time they are spending that is the concern.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children spend no more than two hours a day watching TV and on a computer. That's because excessive screen time has been linked to children having higher blood pressure, higher serum cholesterol and being overweight or obese.

Unfortunately, most children are spending more time looking at screens than that. Looking at data from the 2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Youth Fitness Survey, the researchers found that 27% of the children surveyed were meeting the two-hour limit.