Is TV damaging the health of NZ teens?

Answer 1

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!