Want to protect your preschooler from obesity? Eat dinner as a family six or seven times a week, limit the time the child watches TV to less than two hours a day and make sure he or she gets more than 10.5 hours of sleep a night. Those three simple household routines are associated with an almost 40 percent reduction in the risk of childhood obesity, according to a study co-authored by Robert Whitaker of Temple's Center for Obesity Research and Education.