Article: TV Can Hurt Your Health

In the recent months, I have seen several health articles that have caught my interest.  I have recently read one that I found interesting by the title, but was very disappointed in the content. (5 Ways TV Can Hurt Your Health) I don't go searching for articles and I know any article from Yahoo is no valid research, but sadly many people are exposed and read the content.  I have decided to provide at random articles that I come across, and share my opinions on them on whether it is good to read or the errors that they may portray.  Thousands of people read these articles and too many of them mislead the public

As for this particular article, the title grabbed my attention with the thought, "Finally, a good article to read."
My overall opinion on this article is pretty much a swing and a miss.  I believe the article was in the right direction, but failed to validate itself.  I think it was with good intentions, but lacked serious content and understanding. The title itself is catchy, but yet misleading.  Can TV hurt your health? The answer is - Yes. But is it the cause? No - TV is not the cause of bad health, it is merely an association.  Let's take a look

The article states that 2-3 hours of watching TV a day can increase risk of Type 2 Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, All-Cause Mortality, Sleep Deprivation, and Nearsighted vision. As I may concur with these researched results, I already feel cheated.  Those 5 conditions would not be in my top 5 harmful effects of watching TV.

1. Diabetes - Type 2 Diabetes is an insulin resistant diabetes often association with diet and weight.  So what does TV have to do with it? Obviously, if we are watching TV, then we are not moving and being active. And our diet is effected greatly by our TV routine.  The most common time to watch TV is during dinner time - often resulting in family dinner around the TV.  As well as we often snack as we watch our favorite shows.  And our choices of foods and snacks are not very often the healthiest.  I know these are generalizations - but they are also reality in this day and age. Diabetes is not caused by TV, but it certainly get the ball rolling. TV = poor diet = obesity = diabetes. 
2. Cardiovascular - Again, this is a Diet and Exercise association.  To take it another step, this is also a Stress related issue that can have harmful effects.  One may think how can watching TV be stressful? Well, there are a few ways. One - we put out body in a stress position. We don't think sitting for a couple hours is harmful, but if we add that to sitting at work, sitting in the car, sitting on our computer or phone - then it certainly adds up, putting our body in poor posture causing chronic stress that we may not be aware of. Second, what we watch can be stressful.  One mistake that people do is watch the news before going to bed. Watching the news at all is stressful, but just before bed result in poor sleep. We also watch drama  or scary shows that can produce stressed physiology in our body.  Stress physiology will increase our Heart Rate and increase our Blood Pressure.which chronically with a poor diet can result in damage to the cardiovascular.
3. All-Cause Mortality - I truly don't understand All-Cause Mortality.  The information is pretty vague. I can probably reason on their behalf, but don't know if it is something I can truly defend. It's just too general. But I can put in my plug on how sitting for long periods of time can be detrimental. Again, it goes back to stress physiology which in turn can lead to chronic pain, fibromyalgia, fatigue, decrease immune system, decreased mental function, Parkinson's, ADD, metabolic dysfunction an so on. Simply stress puts the body in a spot of vulnerability.
4. Sleep Deprivation -  Again, TV serves more of a void than anything useful. If I was a TV, I would be quick to defend, "Hey, don't blame me.  It's not my fault you chose to watch late night re-runs than to go to bed knowing full well you had to get up early in the morning." We need to blame our own poor choices rather than an inanimate object - but the awareness needs to be brought up as 90% of Americans today are sleep deprived.
5.  Nearsightedness - This may be the more under appreciated condition, not given the respect it needs as a major factor.  I grew up eventually with nearsightedness with the thought that I just had "bad" eyes.  This article only states the association and I didn't expect any explanation, but thing people misunderstand that that nearsightedness (or even farsightedness) is not so much an "eye" condition as it is a muscle, nerve, or nutrition condition. To see things closer, we first need to converge our eyes.  To see far, we first need to diverge our eyes.  If we are trained to focus our eyes (TV or even at school) then the muscles to diverge our eyes get weak thus losing our ability to see things far away = nearsighted.

I hope these explanations help. I feel this article really lacked substance and understanding, but did get things pointed in the right direction.  It is not so much TV that is harmful, but the associations that come with it - Poor posture, Stress Physiology, lack of exercise or motion, poor diet, and everything else associated.  Let's stop blaming the TV and really start blaming ourselves for our poor choices.  This article could have simply stated, "Get off your butt and go exercise", and could have saved us from the harm from reading this article.