Is TV damaging the health of NZ teens?

Television is damaging the health

of New Zealand teenagers from showing the 'perfect people' to the

gruesome, violent movies that are on air at the time teenagers

watch television (four till Ten). According to research the one in

three teenage boys watch porn, this can lead to sexual violence in

their future. Have you ever seen a really skinny, tan, buff, toned

person and looked down at yourself and wished you looked like that?

Well some teenage girls do in fact the average teenage girl loses

15% off her body weight and height. Television can have the

opposite effect on New Zealand teenagers, 21.3% of our New Zealand

teenagers are overweight and 9.8% is obese.

Imagine you are a hormone-filled

teenager and you 'accidently' switch your television on to one of

the over eighteen only channels and you see sexual intercourse, you

wouldn't think it would affect your brain or your future. It does,

sometimes very badly. It affects the natural development of the

brain and doing so some people get the idea in their head that it's

okay to sexually abuse people, to rape people. Teenage minds are

being brain-washed by pornography every day we know this because

one in three teenage boys and girls are exposed to pornography

whether it is on the television or on the computer or even in

magazines. We can stop this by putting a lock on over eighteen

channels and make sure your teenagers do not know the code.

Television can also affect your health in a much slimmer way.

The teenage mind is strange it is

filled with hormones and feelings that they cannot explain and as

well as all these thoughts there are the images on television of

people who are beautiful, tan, buff, toned but little do teenagers

understand that most of them are covered in makeup, dyed hair

filled with chemicals also they are paid to look beautiful and the

television company change the 'perfect people' even more 'perfect'.

These images cause not only mental illness but physical as well

such as anorexia. To many television programs show celebrities who

look perfect and teenagers look at themselves and think "why can't

I look like that?" They get all these ideas in their head about

being skinny and 'pretty' that they starve themselves, some of the

symptoms of anorexia are : Severe restriction of food intake,

Complete denial of the fact that they are skinny, A deadly fear of

gaining weight, Loss of menstrual cycle, Loss of secondary female

characteristics so that hips become narrow, breasts shrink and hair

loss occurs, Nails become brittle, Osteoporosis (disease of the

bone that is an increased risk of fracture, it make the mineral

density of the bone thinner) or thinning of bones occurs increasing

the danger of fractures, Compulsive exercising of all types, Blood

pressure drops to dangerous levels with the danger of fainting,

Body temperature drops so that these people often feel cold. For

all of these of these reasons keep your teenager's television

watching time down to a maximum of 2 hours per day (or less).

Television can also have the opposite effect on people.

Television is damaging the weight

of our New Zealand teenagers because when the majority of teenagers

get home after school they grab a packet of chips or some other

junk food and sit on their couch watching their television for up

to 6 hours (sometimes more!) this can lead to obesity. The amount

of overweight teenagers in New Zealand is 21.3% and obese teens

9.8% that's a lot for overweight teenagers! This shows New Zealand

Teenagers are getting lazier and wasting their lives on pointless,

cheep, American television programs. So to stop the obesity rate

going up even more get your teenager up of the couch talk to them

or get them involved in a school sport or something to do that's

active! Just get them of that television and out doing something so

we can as a nation keep our obesity rate down!

Think of what life would be like

with no television. Think of all the good that would come from

that! Teens wouldn't feel so self concerned, there would be less

obesity and anorexia rates in New Zealand, there would be less

sexual abuse in our community! So keep the television watching down

to a limit of 2 hours (or less) per day. Take the teenagers out for

a walk or just talk get them involve in your life and remember

television IS damaging the health of New Zealand teenagers!