The American Time Use Survey findings concluded that watching TV accounted for about 50 percent of total leisure activities or almost 11 percent of each total day.
Before you are tempted to buy that new high-definition plasma television, before you sign up for a 500-channel satellite dish, before you allow a TV set in your child’s bedroom, consider this: Your television viewing may be slowly killing you.
On average, American adults now watch 2.57 hours of television per day or 17 percent of each waking day (less sleep). Those are a lot of hours not engaged in some type of physical activity. Adults also miss out on countless other wonderful things that bring meaning to life.
Is it any surprise that more than half of American adults are now overweight and nearly one-third are clinically obese? Television viewing is our number one obstacle to physical activity and physical inactivity is now our number two preventable cause of death, behind smoking.
The time that we are parked in front of our television screens is time lost from playing outside, taking a walk or engaging in a new sport. It is time spent in an unnatural state of physical deprivation, a sedentary state that over time puts us at a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis.
The hours we spend sitting still in front of our televisions are only part of the problem. TV commercials now comprise about 12 minutes in each hour. The advertisements that we watch overwhelmingly push an unhealthy diet rich in fat, sugar and salt. Sugary breakfast cereals, fast-food meals, candy, soda, beer and other processed foods account for nearly all of the food advertisements served up on television.
How can a public health message like eating five or more fruits and vegetables a day compete with the billion-dollar marketing of junk food on the tube? It can’t, and research shows that the more television people watch, the less healthy are their diets.
The detrimental impact of television on children is even more distressing. The percentage of overweight children in the United States has doubled in the last generation. Obesity among young people is highly correlated with the hours of television they have watched. On average, kids today spend an annual estimated 1,500 hours watching television versus the 900 that they spend attending school.
When they stare for hours at television screens, children aren’t running, jumping or playing in ways that are essential for the formation of healthy bones and muscles. They are not exercising their imaginations, creating their own games and interacting with their peers. Children are not developing other more crucial skills such as reading and art.
Instead, they are numbed by television into a state that experts call “attentional inertia,” a TV-induced coma marked by lowered brain activity, passivity and dulled emotional responses. They are subjected to more than 20,000 television ads each year, including advertising that is inherently deceptive for young children who unknowingly accept marketing claims as truth.
The time has come to recognize the harmful effects of our television habit and take action. Start today and get up from the couch. It may be the time to turn off some TV and get involved in more creative, active and social pursuits.
Despite what the TV networks and cable stations want us to believe, we are not missing anything of value if we choose to live with little or no television. We just might get stronger, healthier bodies, more powerful minds and more cohesive families as we take back our lives from our TV sets.
A few other interesting statistics on TV
o TV’s are turned on for an average of almost 8 hours per day in a household
o Average number of commercials seen by Americans by age 65 is 2 million
o An average American will have spent 9 years glued to the tube by age 65
o Forty percent of American families say they regularly watch television while eating dinner
o Forty nine percent of Americans admit they watch too much TV
o Videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6 million
o Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680
o Number of TV sets in the average household: 2.24
o Percentage of Americans who pay for cable TV: 56
The facts are that TV will continue to affect us all dramatically both positively and negatively. TV can be very entertaining, informing, relaxing and educational. The average American continues to watch 2.57 hours of daily TV watching or 17 percent of each waking day. This trend has continued to grow with advancing technologies. Watching TV remains the number one obstacle to physical activity. The suggestion here is one of balance. Would it be possible to simultaneously, or even better yet, reallocate some of this time to physical activity? Having read this far, you already know the answer. A resounding YES!
David Kowalik is a published fitness author who regularly participates in a number of physically demanding sports. He is also motivated by two major epidemics in the world. One is obesity and the other is physical inactivity.
David has conducted research on why an estimated 65% of people do not exercise at all or little. The results of this research has provided a mindset and solutions to improved physical fitness with an emphasis on our lack of time and motivation to exercise. David reveals original and tested concepts on how to get fit without dedicating hours to exercise and without ever having to schedule more time into your already busy schedule. It is about finding and making the time when there is none.
His latest book – Fitness In No Time can be viewed at [http://www.FitnessInNoTime.com]
He is also an internationally certified project manager and accountant and has served many large corporations.
