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.