TV: Junk food for Children's minds

Television has become one of the most convenient sources of entertainment for people. With different channels available ranging from news to cartoon, it isn’t surprising that children and even adults are hooked to it. Television is, somehow, looked to as a stress-reliever for adults and a fun recreation for children that are tired and exhausted from work and school. Both can choose whether to watch action, drama or comedy. They may also learn how to cook, buy stuff, or learn about animals or places through TV without leaving their places. Nevertheless, these activities are still undermined by a number of risks and damages for children. Although children can benefit educationally from watching television, their health and morals are put to risk.

The health of children is affected by excessive TV watching. According to Alex Wattermann’s “Children and TV: The negative effects of Television,” children who watch TV most of the time are prone to sight damages (2006). The more time the children spend next to the TV set, the more their eye mechanics are weakened. In addition to this, the children’s ability to focus and pay attention is also damaged (Watterman, 2006). Television has also caused a great influence on how children view themselves. At a very young age, children nowadays are more conscious of what they look like. Because of commercials and TV shows that promote perfectly shaped bodies, children are having the misconception that having skinny bodies is complete perfection and that everyone should be skinny in order to look pretty. This misconception became the cause of numerous eating disorders such as bulimia, anorexia and self mutilation among children (Watterman, 2006). The issue on obesity has also been raised. The more time children allot on watching TV, the less time they get for their physical activities. Because children no longer have time to exercise, the high sugar and fat food they consume turn into stored fats that causes them to be overweight (Graham, 2008). This obesity problem is also encouraged by TV ads that show unhealthy food (Boyse, 2009). When children like what they see on TV, they ask their parents to buy the product regardless of what effects it may cause on them. If children would ask their parents to buy the junk food they see on TV, most parents would tolerate it because this makes their children happy; thus leading to obesity.

Children’s morals are at risk whenever they watch TV. Being young and naive, children most of the time do not know whether what they are watching is good or bad. When children are exposed to violent acts, they tend to be more aggressive and are more likely to commit acts of violence. It is because children like to imitate and they usually cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy (Boyse, 2009). Children usually adopt or imitate the characters they watch on TV and these “TV characters often depict risky behaviours such as smoking and drinking” that might be viewed by the children as a right thing (Gavin, 2008).

There are some things that children could benefit on from watching television. Television has numerous educational programs like the informative materials that are shown on History Channels and Discovery Channel (Baker, 2007). However, there are also several channels that show entertaining cartoons that children find more interesting to watch. Children would rather watch cartoons rather than educational programs because they only get to watch TV when they have their free time. If they watch learning tools on TV, then they would feel like they are studying all the time even if they are not at school. So watching television for children might be educational but children would use their leisure time for entertainment, not for learning.

Despite the fact that television might educate children, watching television endangers the health and morals of the children watching it. In order to lessen the negative effects of television, parents of children must supervise the programs and the amount of hours their children watch on TV. It’s up to the parents to protect their children from the bad influence TV has to offer to their children.

List of References:

Wattermann, A. (2006). Children and TV: The Negative Effects of Television from

http://www.brainy-child.com/article/children-tv.shtml

Graham, J. (2008, August 12). How Television Viewing Affects Children from

http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/4100.htm

Boyse, K. (2009, November). Television and Children from

http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm

Gavin, M.L. (2008, October). How TV Affects Your Child from

http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

Baker, L. (2007). The Negative Effect of Television on Children from

http://www.helium.com/items/161828-the-negative-effects-of-television-on-children