TV and obesity are not unrelated; children are sitting and watching rather than running and playing. And TV is the perfect time for ingesting unhealthy, fat producing snacks. Part of the joy of mindlessly watching TV is crunching something in your mouth. TV promotes increased consumption. Over 400 studies have now been done, one after another showing that TV time is coupled with both obesity and poor food choices in children and adults. Television viewing occupies a large portion of people’s lives, even infants and very young children. One well known statistic is that children graduating from high school have spent more hours in front of the TV than in school and this must be added to the hours they have spent with video games and computers. Children are in love with the computer. Surfing the internet, playing games, and connecting with friends occupy children for hours at a time, in some cases making television itself a thing of the past. To be a child no longer requires a trip to the library, the park, or a friend’s house. Here are 3 of the facts that you will read about in the notes for this week, these are a few that really stood out to me.

• Children watching Saturday morning cartoons see a food commercial every five minutes.
• 34% of children with poor reading skills watched 6 hours or more of TV daily.
• The average child sees 10,000 food advertisements a year. 95% are for fast food, sugary cereals, soft drinks, and candy.