Too Much TV?

What is the one thing that 99% of Americans have in common? They all own a TV. Do you know how many hours a day the average American watches that TV of theirs? Over four hours a day! One of the major causes of obesity and eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia is the TV. Please listen to these statistics:

66% of Americans watch TV while eating meals
The average TV is on for more than 6 hours and 47 minutes a day
250 Billion hours of TV are watched a year in America
6 Million videos are rented each day while only 3 million books are checked out from a public library each day

People may read this and think; “Oh TV that is no big deal so what if we watch a lot” or “It keeps the kids entertained”

The average child spends 1,680 minutes a week watching television
70% of day care centers use TVs as entertainment
Parents spend on average a whole 3.5 minutes in a meaningful conversation with their kids per week.
The average American child spends 900 hours in school and 1500 hours watching TV
By the time the average child finishes elementary school they have seen over 8,000 TV murders and 200,000 violent acts.
Before Americans die their total TV watching hours can easily exceed 15 years total

I could easily go on and on with these statistics on TV watching. All of us know we watch a lot of TV but nobody seems to do anything about it. Even if there is nothing good on people still watch it. I don’t understand why and I am even one of them. TV is addictive and we all know it. We find our selves out of habit, just going straight to one of our many television sets in our house and flipping them on without even thinking. Then we stay and watch for hours and hours even if nothing good is on. Now days the programs on TV are filled with bad things and junk. The adult content on the air has gone up by over 90% in the past fifty years and just keeps rising at a steady rate. Violence and addiction are not the only TV-related health problems. A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey released in October 1995 found 4.7 million children between the ages of 6-17 (11% of this age group) to be severely overweight, more than twice the rate during the 1960's. People are to busy watching TV to go out and exercise. A study showed that there were an average of 200 junk food ads in four hours of children's Saturday morning cartoons. According to William H. Deitz, pediatrician and prominent obesity expert at Tufts University School of Medicine, "The easiest way to reduce inactivity is to turn off the TV set. Almost anything else uses more energy than watching TV." Children are not the only Americans suffering from weight problems; one-third of American adults are overweight. According to an American Journal of Public Health study, an adult who watches three hours of TV a day is far more likely to be obese than an adult who watches less than one hour. Sometimes the problem is not too much weight; it's too little. Seventy-five percent of American women believe they are too fat, an image problem that often leads to bulimia or anorexia. Female models and actresses are twenty-three percent thinner than the average woman and thinner than ninety-five percent of the female population. Not all TV is bad it just depends what you watch and how much of it you watch. I hope that you will take these reasons into your daily lives and consider not watching so much TV. I feel the best solution is by changing our routines to find a better alternative for entertainment.

Car Search

I don’t know if most of you know or not but my birthday is in September, which means I will be sixteen in a little over five months. I will be getting my drivers license then. (Scary huh) My parents don’t want me to have a car but they want me to be able to drive. So they are going to buy a car and let me use it, but it is not my car it is theirs. (They keep stressing that part) So since cars are my obsession, (and it may be time to start looking for a suitable car for me) I was browsing around KSL classifieds for used cars. Friday night I was searching there for cheap cars for me to “use” when I turn sixteen. I happened into the BMW section (which happens to be my absolute favorite brand of cars) and I found a little red 3 series. It was perfect for me, it was a little old and the paint was peeling a little but it was cheap! I showed it to my dad Saturday morning; he kind of got this smile on his face and said, “That would be pretty nice.” He told me to write down the address of the dealership. I did and we drove off to Ogden to go look at it. We stopped at a stoplight and I looked out the window and saw it parked right in front of the dealership. It was the best! We pulled into the lot and got out of the car and walked over to it. Yeah the paint was peeling a little and the leather seats were a little cracked, but I loved it. A salesman came out with the key and we stared it up. It started fine then after a minute of it running it started to smell a little like a strong lawnmower exhaust gassy smell. We got in it to go on a test drive and when my dad put it into gear it started to shake and rattle and bounce. We looked at each other and laughed as we drove it away on the test run. The salesman in the back seat laughed and said, “Well this car needs a tune up really bad!” I asked if the sunroof worked and he said no. But I pushed the button anyway and it opened up anyway. We laughed again and we drove the smelly, bouncy, shaky, car down the road with the sunroof open. Then I noticed that the car was flashing a sign that said, “Left taillight not working.” There were just to many things wrong with it. After we were finished playing with it and got back to the lot. The owner car lot came out laughing and said, “I wouldn’t touch that car with a 10 foot pole!” He went on to say that the car had not passed inspection and emissions by the state. Also it had a bunch of loose and missing parts in the engine and suspension. Too bad too cause I really liked the car. It would have been a great sixteen car if it worked. Ha Ha. I just guess I will have to keep looking around.

Attitude

This is my Comma Essay assignment from last week. I was reading over it again and impressed myself that I wrote it, so I am going to publish it again.

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference," Mrs. Crittenden my 4th grade teacher drilled into our heads. Every morning we would say it over and over again. "Now class say it with me,” she would say, ”Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference," our class always repeated back rather unenthusiastically. " But now thinking about it now she was right. I have a good attitude, or at least I think I do. Attitude makes the world what it is. People, their thoughts, and attitudes, are what makes the world, and how people look at it. If you don’t have a good attitude about something, then you are going to get absolutely nothing out if it. Life is pretty good, except when we are driving in the winding highway of life, taking the ups, downs and the curves it throws at you. But taking control of your car on this highway, you can make it safely to your destination. In other words if you don’t take control of your attitude and look at everything in a bad way, things will only get worse. But if you change your attitude to make the best of things, you will find yourself having a good time. I have done many things in my life I have not wanted to do at all, but I still knew I had to do them anyway. I would always complain, “Why do I have to go?” or “I don’t want to go can I stay home?” I know for a fact that all of us have done this. But if I look at whatever I am doing in a fun way, most of the time I always find myself having fun. Even sometimes I argue with my parents about how boring something will be and how much I don’t want to go. “Oh come on you will have fun!” Is what they all say as they push you out of the car and drive away. Then you go with a bad attitude, sometime during it you change it had find you had fun, a lot of fun. Then they pick you up and your parents say, “How was it.” I just always answer fine. Remember what you have learned about attitude. Attitude luckily is something people can control. What they don't realize is that all they need to do is change now and then and it will make a world of difference. Just remember, “Attitude is a little thing that really does make a humongous difference!”

California: Part 2

Since I have so much to talk about, I have split up my writing about the trip is a few parts. So here is part 2. Wow I am only on day two. Ok then Friday we packed up the car in the morning and headed on down to San Diego to go to Sea World. We stopped for some Subways about halfway there. Finally we pulled into Sea World. We got in and the first thing we did was ride “Journey to Atlantis.” It was so much fun. It’s a mix of a water ride and a roller coaster. Fist it’s the traditional climb up the slope. But then it drops you with a splash down the big slope. Then the river carries you around and into an elevator. The elevator grabs your car and takes you to the top. That’s where the roller coaster starts. It was a lot of fun. Then we went to go see a pet show, Shamu and the dolphin show. Before we knew it the day was over the park was closing. But that was my favorite part of the whole day. We got to the car and were hungry so my dad said, “Oh I know this good Mexican place”. So we drove into Old Town, San Diego. It’s a State Historical part of San Diego that seems like it has been frozen in time. So we arrived there parked our car and walked up main street. I felt like I was in the small olden day village in Mexico, kind of like the city Nacho Libre. Anyway we got to this really old restaurant. It looked like a very small house decorated with normal lights, Chile pepper lights and cactuses on the porch. We walked in to the sound of two men in sombreros playing their guitars to some Mexican tune. We were seated in the very small dinning room and I looked around and the ceiling was covered with hanging Piñatas. (Later on I figured out the restaurant was called La Piñata) We ordered got a really big plate of food, which we ate to live guitar music. I think the best Mexican food I have ever had. (Aside from Café Rio but that doesn’t count) We loaded our leftovers in a box and started out long drive back to Anaheim in the fun California traffic. The next day was Universal Studios. We watched the fun shows about how they made all the movies, and rode the exciting movie rides (and for those of you who have been there, rode escalators all day). My favorite was “The Mummy: The Ride” da da da. It was fun and FAST! Once we knew it again the day was over and the park was closing. We dove back from Hollywood to Santa Ana where we stopped for Olive Garden for dinner. While we were waiting to get into dinner we walked through the mall. We played the game if “Find the most expensive clothing item.” I won with my $350 plus tax pair of jeans. We ate then once again called it a night. I only have a little more to tell you so I will start next week’s blog with the end of my trip!

California: Part 1

Ya I finally went on a Vacation and it went way way to fast! If you have been reading my last blogs you probably know that I went to California. My parents surprised my little brother and me about it two weeks before we left. It was the first time my whole family has flown on a plane at once, and my family’s first family vacation in almost seven years. So we had to get up at like five on Thursday morning so we could be at the airport in time to leave. After the short flight of about an hour and a half we got our car, checked into our hotel, and got a burrito at taco bell, and went right on into Disneyland. Our first ride was Indiana Jones. After that we just kept going on rides right and left. Then I got a terrible headache. I honestly think the worst one I have ever had. I think it was from all the jerking and bumping of the rides. Anyway I asked my dad if he had any aspirin or something in this pocket since I saw him put some in this pocket before we took off earlier that morning. But then he told me he had left it in the car. So I just spit out my gum (cause that gives me headaches if I chew to long) and figured it would go away. Well three hours later after going on even more rides; including the Teacups, Roger Rabbit and other spinning rides it still did not go away. In fact it just got thirty times worse. To the point where I thought I was going to throw up. By then it was about five o’clock and the park closed at six. So we decided to go to California adventure. Still with my headache I went on the Tower of Terror. Oh my gosh first the ride freaked me out, then after I got off, Oh my head! Oh my poor head! But for some reason I kept going to rides, so we wandered over to Soarin’ Over California. As we were waiting in line my dad asked me if my head still hurt. But then I was like lying on the ground about ready to throw up. I said yes then guess what my mom pulls out of her pocket!!! Ya I know what you are guessing and you are right. Oh I wanted to die especially since my mom had the aspirin with her all day. So after another nauseating ride I finally took it right as the parks were closing for the night. Kind of a bummer but it was still really fun. We were starving after that so we went to this pizza place. I don’t know what it was called but it was a lot like the Pie Pizzeria. It was really really good. Then we went to the store across the street to got cookies and snacks for our hotel room. Then we went to our hotel and went straight to bed. Well im done with writing right now so next post I will tell you about the rest of the trip. I had a blast!