TV Makes Kids Fat?

Maybe it's related to video game playing too. I don't know if they figure that into everything, but it seems like today's kids play a lot more video games (on the TV) than kids before. But I definitely see your point though...I run, but I also watch quite a bit of TV and I'm not fat.

There is health warnings on tv!

TV may be targeted in such a way simply because it's a sedentary activity AND one that leaves your hands unoccupied... meaning that the temptation to grab food and stuff in in your mouth while watching is strong. (By the way, does anyone else have feelings of "hunger" rise in them when watching TV? It's not real hunger, of course. I have this problem, so I keep my TV time very limited.)

I'm less sure about video games though. For using my computer intensively and having played video games a lot when I was younger, I can say that there's very little time left to eat when the hands are so busy.

Did anyone ever consider the reasons for higher television use?
I remember being younger and actually being able to go outside and PLAY. Going to a local playground, school-grounds or just around the neighborhood with friends. Now-a-days, its very hard for children to get that because of the high amounts of child related crimes and abductions. Kids are not even safe in their own backyards! So how to deal with that? Keep them in the house. What about schools? Gym or Phys Ed was REQUIRED everyday, heck I had a gym uniform...now its like once or twice a week, if that.

So I agree, television is not the main cause, but society IS.

Yeah, no kidding. When I was a kid, we played outside all the time. We also didn't have cable, so there was hardly anything good on anyway :) We were lucky to have a fenced-in backyard, so we would go out and run around out there and climb trees. And we lived on a cul-de-sac, so we were able to ride our bikes around the house pretty much uninterupted. I definitely think that society is a big factor in rising obesity rates in kids. It's becoming a less kid-friendly atmosphere, so parents feel forced to keep them indoors, watching TV of course.

It's not the TV, It's not the book reading, It's not the fast food places; the buck stops here! It's all about me. It's my lack of an active life style, my not being informed sufficiently of nutrition, my hidden disregard for myself, and my inappropriate choices of eating the empty calorie foods. It's all about what I eat, how much I eat, when I eat, and how I eat. I struggle with myself all of the time. Thanks for the chance to give my opinion.

The whole modern world is based on distraction; of course one could and should learn to balance a lifestyle; there's time to chill out and watch some TV, and there's time to get up and do something. I doubt anyone disagrees with the concept that self-discipline is important when it comes to exercise.

However, I don't know that children are expressly taught to analyze their life to that degree. One problem is we are all very programmed beings. Whoever has control of what goes into your senses, has an inordinate amount of control over behavior as well. People have to learn to question their programming - who is doing it, and what their intent is. Mostly, kids are taught to obey without question. Take everything their parents and teachers say on faith, move around to the sound of buzzers and bells at school. It's no wonder that this lack of questioning leads to a sort of glassy-eyed lifestyle, staring at the TV and allowing themselves to be programmed.

That's one problem. I am particularly fascinated with commercials; I analyze almost every commercial that comes on television, deconstructing what is being sold and how, and the intended audience/demographic. Most commercials become completely ineffective (on me) as a result of this deconstruction - with one exception.

Show me a dew-crusted glass of amber beer with a nice head, a juicy burger up close...I'm like Pavlov's dog, salivating not at sound but at what I see. I know it's happening, but it works nonetheless. Any chef knows how much presentation matters in terms of how appetizing something is - so do those who make commercials. You don't need to be clever or funny or underhanded to sell me food - just make it look REALLY good. Kids programming is full of ads for crap food; without even realizing it, most kids just get hungry and eat.

Someone mentioned gym class. One problem with gym when I went to high school in the 80s was how short it was - 10 minutes at the beginning and end to change left about 25 minutes for actual activity. Minus more for attendance, and moving to the sports fields...What's the point?

What they should do is double up or triple the time for gym. There should be a minimal fitness test for all kids - the ones who pass get to play sports and do stupid gym stuff like dodgeball, and the gum-chewing ex jocks who didn't know what to do with their lives (we all know gym teachers like this) get to go "coach" that activity.

The ones who don't meet the requirements ought to get separated out into squads - perhaps of differing fitness levels. The gym teachers who supervise these squads ought to be better qualified in nutrition and exercise. If you can isolate these squads so they can't see each other, you can maybe get rid of some of the humiliation and self-consciousness involved with not being in the best of shape (most of the jocks - in my experience, the source of much of the problem - would be filtered out entirely, quite happy to associate only with each other, no doubt).

Then, these less-than-fit students ought to be put in activities which stress, say, cardiovascular fitness - sports such as soccer and basketball. Every day there'd be a 10 minute lesson at the end on nutrition.

Students could request a re-test whenever they like, and when they pass, they can go play dodge ball or whatever stupid pointlessness the gum chewing jocks have them doing. When I was in gym, it was all stupid pointlessness. I used to call it "clothes changing class" as this consumed most of the time spent in the gymnasium.

The physical education department should be 100% in charge of the cafeteria. This should be out of the hands of the school boards or whoever makes those decisions entirely, because they're doing a lousy job (News flash: Replacing soda with fruit juice is only marginally healthier, and will do zero to combat obesity. How about fruit machines that dispense actual fruit? At least there's some fiber. Or how about more WATER FOUNTAINS? Remember water? That was my only option in school. Physical Education teachers would be more in a position to know this thing - even in the 80s before the low-carb craze, I remember one of the gym teachers explaining how he only occasionally had orange juice, and how he diluted it with water when he did due to the calorie density.)

Students should have at least 3 hours of actual physical activity per week - not including the time it takes to change, take roll call, or attendance.

Or else, *WHY BOTHER AT ALL*? Physical education in my school was a complete waste, and I hear now it's just a few times a week. What's the point? Does it serve any purpose at all, fitness-wise?

And in fact I wouldn't even call it physical education. I'd call it "fitness", period. Education is important, but the charter should be to keep kids healthy, or make them that way.

I cannot figure out the point of so-called physical education, at least if it is taught the way mine was. I grew to hate it, as most fat kids do. I think even if I wasn't fat, I would have hated it just as much.

But then, there was this one teacher, Mr. Becker. He was not like most of the rest of the male teachers who were trying to relive their high school glory days as jocks. He was in perfect physical condition and he would quietly go to fat kids (like me), and encourage us to come after school to the weight room where he'd help them get started with remedial exercise.

He was positive, encouraging, and quiet, but involved in making students healthier above and beyond gym class. He was never about "how fat you are" but "how much healthier you could be." It was always about fitness with him - not how good you were at sports, or whether you were on varsity (IOW, how popular you were), but just how you felt, and how you felt, psychologically, about yourself. He was a true "coach" in this sense.

Mr. Becker was a rare exception as far as gym teachers go, and he is the only reason I've ever thought that gym could actually be an antidote to teenage obesity. Except for him I have essentially hated all gym teachers, as well as the total exercise in inconvenience and pointlessness that gym was.

It doesn't have to be that way. If you can take a kid and make him or her thinner, healthier, happier, and show him or her that his body can change and progress can be made, then maybe you wouldn't have to fight those battles over how much television they're watching; maybe they'd be invested in their own health rather than simply feel humiliated and sluggish all the time.

I have long given up on the idea that parents as a whole can be relied on to set an example. More and more parents are overweight, tired, wedded to convenience foods, and do not set a great example. Those who are concerned don't want to screw up a kid's self-esteem by being too invested in a kid's diet and lifestyle (a legitimate fear I suppose). In other cases, kids will rebel just to rebel.

Properly structured fitness class in school could compensate for these deficiencies. A friend of mine says, "Energy begets energy." Maybe he read that somewhere. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that healthier kids will tend to move around more. They'll tend to go outside more. We have all encountered very healthy, fit people, who seem to have boundless energy. If you can get a kid's heart pumping for 3 hours a week, maybe you'd see less sitting around sluggishly, watching television, and being tempted by commercials.

But that's just my opinion; I could be completely wrong.

dose anybody know what it is like to once be skinny and then just with in a two month period of time go to over weight its horrible no cloths fits you any more becouse your getting so fat so fast a butin pop right off your jeans right in the middle of class your favorit shirt not fitting any more becouse your belly hangs out of it a little but thats not the worst part im a girls and most of my fat is going to my hips thighs and now i have a very big butt its round and all the boys say how my butt got so big and if i were a bikki my hip feel like there going to bust my bikki and all the fat from my thighs looks all fatty and every thing just somebody help

so no exercise and just sittin around wachin tv and eating dose get teens fat becouse i am now 165 pounds and i use to be a fit 100 i gained 65 pounds in 2 months by getting no exercise

As many news articles and medical stories have shown,people who are overweight and obese have no chance of keeping the weight off themselves,as their body is programmed to return to that weight as soon as possible,so diets and not eating enough just cause problems that the hospitals just cannot handle and risk the well being of others.Television obviously adds to this because it not even really exercising the brain and causing stress and weight through just sitting there.

One of the problem's is that while watching TV you're exposed to commercials for food that may or may not make you crave it. Often times, kids' shows are full of junk food commercials or fast food commercials. Also, eating with the TV on, can make you eat more than you would like to b/c you're not paying attention to what you're doing.

i believe that too much television does encourage obseity in young children as i am currently conducting an ALevel research study on the topic. The hypothesis that im proving is 'childrens television has a negative effect on their physical development' i would appreciate your views for my research. it is all confidential and i just need your age, where you live and your opinion. email me on little_mizz_naughty9@hotmail.com. thank you. harnish

I think that since I was young many, not all kids are a a lot less active. When I was young cable tv wasn't as popular or expansive as it is now. We had atari games, but most kids would only play that for so long, we didn't really have the interet, so kids in my neighborhood were outside running around playing sports all day even in the winter. These days kids have Cable TV, X box, playstation, texting on phones, internet etc. All entertaining, but sedentary activities. Kids spends hours doing all these things. In a way I envy all the technology kids have today, but I don't think I would trade that for the active lifestyle I learned to appreciate because we had to be more inventive to entertain ourselves "back in the day". Also when I was in school we did not have pop machines and vending machines in the schools. We ate during mealtimes and drank water during the day not pop full of empty calories. Unfortunatly the schools like the nice chunck of change they get from the the vending machines, even though along with cutting physical activity they are setting their kids up for obesity and future heart disease.

I love this website it is so cathartic. : )