April 22 Valley Life Column

April 22 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly

Turn off the TV and lose some weight

I read in a magazine that April 24-30 is Turn Your TV off Week here in America. If you farm for a living, you probably don't care because most of your time, from sunup to sundown, is spent outdoors. By the time you get a chance to sit down, you're too tired to eat, let alone watch TV. But, if you're like the majority of Americans, me included, you spend too much time in front of the television.

Actually, my TV habits could be worse. Even though the television sits in the living room, only feet from the kitchen table, TV at our house rarely comes on in the daytime. I'm not like friends who wake up with TV and listen to Good Morning America while I get ready for work. The minute I turn on TV, I plop my butt on the sofa, and there I sit, like a zombie. If I used my television for an alarm clock, I'd be late for work, every single day.

But I do like to watch TV in the evening, when my work is done and I want to relax. Instead of entertaining myself with a book or a long walk, I let the television entertain me, which isn't good.

According to the TV-Turnoff Network (www.tvturnoff.org), a nonprofit organization that encourages children and adults to watch less television in order to promote healthier lives and communities, television undermines family life, harms children, hampers education, promotes obesity, violence and over-consumption, as well as squelches political awareness. Statistics posted on the organization's Web site claim 59 percent of Americans can name the Three Stooges, but only 17 percent can name three Supreme Court justices.

I was amazed when I read the statistics: By age 18, an average American child will have watched 200,000 violent acts on TV. By age 65, the average American will have watched 2 million TV commercials. Forty percent of Americans frequently or always watch television during dinner. This last statistic had me waving my hand, guilty.

Since I usually unwind watching movies at night, I decided to conduct my own study. I would count the number of commercials in a two-hour movie. At exactly 8 p.m. the movie started; the first 17 minutes were commercial-free. Then the ads started coming, every nine or 10 minutes. By the end of the movie, I had counted 76 commercials; a good 30 minutes of my two-hour movie consisted of ads.

Then I decided to count the number of commercials during the local news: 18 commercials in less than 10 minutes. If I had been inspired by these commercials, I would now be the proud owner of 10 new cars, a new truck, and would have consumed three different kinds of pizzas!

US Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher said at the kickoff of TV-Turnoff Week 2001, "We are raising the most overweight generation of youngsters in American history ... This week is about saving lives."

Again, I am waving my hand. I need to lose a few pounds. It wouldn't hurt me to turn off my TV. I wouldn't hurt me to take a walk around the block instead of watching ads about cars and pizzas.

Maybe I'll join the people at TV-Turnoff Network and unplug my television this week. Who knows what all I might accomplish or what I might see.