I love television. I enjoy watching a variety of programs from news, to sports, to pure entertainment. With the choices we have today especially with all of the cable or dish channels you could watch something different every hour all day long and not repeat one single show. Amazing! There is power in the programming we watch, we can learn new things, be informed about the world, and witness live weather disasters.
Unfortunately many of us our struggling with overweight sedentary life styles that are detrimental to our overall health and TV watching can be partly to blame, the couch potato syndrome. I didn’t want to start out writing this article on the benefits of getting up and moving, which is SO important in keeping your body fit and your weight in the healthy range, I wanted to talk about the lifestyle examples we see on regular TV programming.
I am a Mad Men fan. I can’t even figure out why I am a fan. I don’t particularly like any of the characters but somehow I have gotten sucked into their stories. Mad Men is a story set in a 1960’s advertising agency. If you watch Mad Men then you know that they drink and smoke ALL THE TIME, day and night. I find it slightly unbelievable that alcohol was kept in the offices and the employees drank throughout the day or that everyone smokes. Let”s hope that no one watching this show decides they want to emulate the characters. That much alcohol and cigarettes would be horrible for your health.
Other TV shows aren’t a whole lot better or movies for that matter. Very few entertainment shows offer a realistic picture of the consequences of unhealthy lifestyle choices. (Maybe that is why we like them, the lack of reality). But what we watch can greatly impact who we are and the choices we make. And more and more research is showing that lifestyle choices such as alcohol consumption, smoking, over eating, and lack of exercise play an important role in our overall health.
Lifestyle choices to focus on:
Weight – Keep your weight in your healthy weight range.
Eat a balanced diet – Consume a well-balanced diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables. Good nutrition that provides your body with all the different vitamins and minerals is requires is important.
Exercise – Get active. It is recommended that you exercise for 30 minutes 5 days per week.
Limit alcohol – Alcohol consumption increases your risk for health issues. People who are heavy drinkers have more heart problems than moderate drinkers on non-drinkers.
Quit Smoking – We all know that smoking makes lung cancer a real possibility and can lead to COPD or emphysema. Find a way to quit, nicotine gum, patches or hypnotherapy.
https://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/smc
Get adequate sleep – Adults should get 7 to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. Your body uses the time you are asleep to repair tissue, release hormones, synthesize proteins, and grow muscles.
If we keep in mind that all of those beautiful attractive people we are watching on TV have personal trainers, nutritionists and plastic surgeons to keep them looking the way they do, and that they are NOT their characters we hopefully won”t emulate their bad habits. Or how about you make your own life so interesting and full you don”t have time to escape into some other reality.
