Calorie labeling on products has become more law and thank goodness for that in this country, because we have to better know what we are taking in. I know as I have aged, I am have become a better calorie watcher on the drinks I drink and the foods that I eat. We all must police ourselves or continue this trend of getting heavier and heavier because companies are going to produce what they produce. The government needs to press more restaurants and diners and grocery chains to list their calories of the foods they serve. In some states when they have done this, some establishments have fought back against because they were ashamed on what was on the menu. We must take a better account of what we are putting into our bodies if we want to count down on our waist lines.
New York as a state is one state, I have learned is one at the fore front of making establishment with 15 or more restaurants, clearly make it visible at the establishment of the products they are serving and its calorie intake. This way people will hopefully make better informed decisions, on what they eat for lunch or dinner when they go out. Many people if they see this would not eat some of the foods they see at the restaurants if they knew how much sodium or salt or calories were in the food. Some people will eat what they want to eat but there are many who would pass up the food once they see how much weight they will gain. I commend this State for doing what they have done to help this country against its weight problems.
In the 1960’s and 1970’s, which I was alive for, people told me they drank more milk and eat fruits and vegetables more than people do today. I remember growing up that it was not the cakes and cookies and things was not a part of our snack times. Today we choose to snack all day long and drink soda and energy drinks and food that is packed with sugars and sweeteners. The food industry is bringing many products to the market and spending on average $33 billion in ads to get us to try their products. It is America and they have a right in a capitalistic society to market products they want. They are not in any way forcing the good into our mouths that we eat though and we need to make smarter decisions. This is all of us. We need to just flat out eat less portions and eat the heavier and fatter foods in moderation that we really like. It is a change but one that I hope many make after reading this book.
The food industry has a goal to sell food and make profits because that is how their company survives. They must sell product and a lot of it to pay their employees and for the advertising of their products in today’s electronic media to us as the consumers. Once again it is our responsibility to choose water over stuff like soda drinks some of the time and watch the different foods we will continue to eat in the future.
The way to find out if you are overweight or obese is to use the formula to see you your BMI(Body Mass Index) and more need to know this. To check if you are overweight take your weight in pounds and times it by 702. Then divide that by your height in inches and then square it. Divide the top number by the bottom number and this will give one their BMI score and let you know where you are at(Weight X 702 = BMI. That
Ht. in inches 2(squared)
number tells one that the higher the number the higher amount of body fat one has and need to shed. If you are under 18.5 you are underweight and a normal BMI is 18.5 to 24.9. A BMI of 25.0 to 29.5 states that you are overweight and if you have a BMI score of 30 or over you are considered obese.
The fact is genes can play a role in whether someone can or will gain weight or have some health issues. I have met people in the past that had some thyroid issues and other issues, that cause them to get heavier and that is just a fact of life. But many people can be doing a lot more to cut down on their high weight problems and we know that. For people like that diet and what they consume becomes even more important to them and something they have to watch closely. With so much of the country listed as obese we have our work cut out for it but I think we can do it.
There are currently six states that mandate that schools must check student’s weights and heights and send home a report card to parents about the students BMI. I would only hope by 2015 most states would enact such a law. This is not there to embarrass any body but to let the child and parents know where their child stands and if anything can be done to help them. New Jersey is one of those states doing this and this can help parents, who have children that have higher than average BMI, to know that they need to make substantial changes in eating habits with that child. A lot of schools not only in New Jersey but other states are tying to help students while they are young to make better nutritional decisions. This could be a life lesson that will be very valuable to that person as they age.
By this year 2010 the obesity rate for children and teenagers is showing as high as 20%. If schools work to curb obesity at their level, it can enable students to learn that life long message on really watching their weight. They could go on to help other friends watch in and then when they raise families in the future they will do the same thing there. The hard fact is we have children and adults alike that are literally eating themselves to death. They want to live a long and prosperous life but are clogging their arteries and veins with bad chemicals that will kill them in some way in the future.
Kids are developing illnesses early in life like Type II diabetes, hypertension, bone and joint problems because of the weight, high cholesterol, asthma, and will have it for much of their lives. Some kids today taking medications that you would see a man or women at the age of 40-50 years of age would take. That is horrible and this is happening at an alarming rate. The problem people are dying younger than they need to because of poor judgment they are making for their lives.
Parents and children have to make huge life changes together that can change weight gain. It can start at the grocery store for the person that buys the groceries for the house in really considering what they are picking up for the family to eat on the home front. A calling of arms needs to happen now to each work together in little ways to chip away at this obesity problem we have brought on ourselves. A lot of kids and adults get bored or down in life and they reach to food to coat their problems. They figure that food will make them feel better and silently all they are doing is killing them selves. We have to do this together and I know that we can. Americans are great people and have strong will and this may not seem like a serious issue but go on the internet and you will see it is beyond a huge issue.
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Americans Steps to Change
Chapter 11
The Effects of Media/Movies on Americans
“Sometimes it’s the small decisions that can change your life forever”- Keri Russell
Recently I went to the movies with my wife and kids and we saw the movie “Up”, which was a wonderful comical cartoon movie. I went with my kids Jillian and Justin and it was a part of their School’s Night Out at the Movies. I must admit that is was so refreshing to sit through two hours of my life, where some guys was not murdering somebody else or someone was not running someone over with their car. I am in no way trying to sound corny or anything but it was so pleasant to just sit through a movie that was not filled with murder and sex. Unfortunately this is the kind of world that all of us live in now where even basic television shows are full of sex and somebody getting killed all the time. After all that is what sells and people like it but it is entering our self conscious as normal every day behavior in the country.
Even turn on your local news or National news and it appears that they spend more than half the broadcasts talking about war around the world of some national murder story. It is what so many Americans have come accustomed to and in so ways that is a sad party of our society. I am only 40 years old and I can remember only 20-25 years ago where you did not hear a lot of curse words on television and sex was not the talk of many of the shows. There is a time and a place for that and off course violent acts and sexual acts on the screen is what some want and expect on the screen today. It has become so tiring for many to watch the demon kinds of movies and violent movies and even video games that jam the store shelves of our stores and theatres. Like it or not your mood and mind do get polluted when this is all it is engrained with. I have for a long time become more of a comedy movie watcher because it makes me laugh and it takes my mind from the everyday violence I have to hear about all the time.
Sadly it is thrown in our faces everyday because it sells and it grabs the attention of many Americans. Whether you are on the internet or television and at the theatres or even listening to the radio it seems like violence is so much a part of our everyday lives. There are many studies that I will share with you in this chapter that will show that indeed the video games and shows we watch can really affect the people we are or may become in the future. I talked with some elderly people and they all felt that the filth on television and in the movies have been a huge reason for the change in people in this country.
Studies on this subject have been done by many and even have dated back to the 60’s. So there have been many that have felt this was a serious enough issue and the way media affects us has gotten worse. Do understand I am a person that enjoys fun movies like the American Pie movies and Hangover, so I am subject to some sex and comedy in myown life. But the horror movies are just too violent for me and to troubling for many to sit through in this day and age. We are at a point that parents and kids need to police themselves a little better on what they choose to watch. These kinds of movies can have an ill effect on you mentally more than you think. You hear of so many crimes with youth who say they were acting on what they play on video games.
For instance many researchers have done studies with younger adults and even adults and have noticed that exposure to violent imagery was linked to increased heart rates, and faster respiration and higher blood pressure and more aggression. There is an expert on this subject, professor L. Rowell Huesmann, from the University of Michigan, that has said that evidence from the last fifty years shows “that exposure to media violence causes children to behave more aggressively and can effect adults in the same. Media and television has done some great things like with music and sports and digital programming, but then many stations have done a lot to promote filth to our society because it sells. But at what cost?
When I see shows on cable like The Osborne’s with Ozzy Osborne’s family, where it is a dysfunctional family, in many ways and that is shown for others to laugh at and think is cool, is crazy. I respect that some people like a show like that and they have every right in this country to preview what they want, but shows like this come with a price. How many young children will watch a show where money is never an issue and foul language is used and think that it is normal for many families to act like that. The Osbourne’s have every right to raise there own family in any way they see fit but they are on television to promote bizarre acts of family behavior to others. Of course this is my opinion and also in this country I am allowed to have one but I saw the show like twice and thought it was horrible.
In 1960, another University of Michigan professor Leonard Eron studied 856 third graders in a semi rural community in Columbia County, New York, and the study showed that children that watched more violent television acted more aggressively at school. He later then went back to the school some 11 years later in 1971. He wanted to see if those students who watched a lot of violent television had changed in any way. His study showed that particularly the boys who watched violent TV years back were more likely to get in trouble with the law when they were teenagers. This finding really tells a lot because think of how much more horror and violent our shows and movies, are watched today from what they were in the 1960’s. Also I would think that a lot of this would be the same with sex on television affecting the way people would look at sexual encounters in really life. In this day and age it seems like rape is talked about a lot more today then the incidences of this crime was mentioned in the 50’s. I am sure it happened but not the the extent of the crime today. The media and what we watch on television in this authors opinion can have a huge impact on the actions of some people.
And to further substantiate what I have pointed out here Eron and another professor returned to this same county in 1982 some years later. They reported that the participates who had watched more violent TV as eight year olds were more likely than the others to be convicted of more serious crimes, and be more aggressive with their own children and maybe even their spouses. This is some incredible findings and I think we all as adults or parent’s, have to take these and other findings seriously because this kind of stuff has hurt our country. We all as a populace have to think more about what we are watching and also what our own children are watching at the movies or on television. It is fair game out there for what is on television and the big screen and we all have to do a better job restricting what younger people watch.
Another study that I found to be incredible was one done by a Columbia University professor Jeffrey Johnson. Johnson tracked 707 families also from upstate New York over a 17 year period. The study started back in 1975 and was finished in the year 2002. What Johnson found was that when children watched one to three hours of television a day when they were 14 to 16 years of age, they were 60 percent more likely to be involved in assaults or fights than those that did not. Lets face it with a lot of the filth that is out there on some cable stations and televisions, that is probably not a surprise to a lot of people.
Many young adults could act out and not be able to clearly think out some of their actions that they may have viewed. I know many years ago I spoke with my wife and let her know how important I thought it was not to allow any violent movies in the house or any violent video games. For the Play Station 2, my son and daughter play, only sports video games or learning videos would be all that would be allowed in our house. She agreed because the kids would probably benefit from this later in life. This has never been a hard sell to my wife because she has never been a fan of the kids watching any inappropriate television.
A third study was done by a University of Washington professor Brandon Centerwall, and his study noted that there was a sharp increase in the murder rate in North America in 1955, which was eight years after the television came out. I talked with a customer of mine Willard Freysinger, who owned a local big car dealership in Harrisburg. He was so interesting to talk with because now at 84 years old he gave me a glimpse into growing up in the forties and fifties. He said when he was growing up kids spent all their time playing basketball and baseball and were out of the house. He said it was so much fun for them and it enabled them to stay out of trouble. He felt that the attitudes of the children of today had changed so much from the days of his early life.
Centerwall went out and not only looked at North America but took his study to South Africa to test his hypothesis. What it showed was that in that country television was banned till 1975. He found that over time and as much as 12 years later murder rates skyrocketed in that country after television was introduced. We all worry so much someone harming us while we walk the streets of a city, but have failed to realize that our televisions are more of a harm, to us, in many ways. Now does that mean I will throw out my television’s? Absolutely not- because there is so much great programming on television on the other hand that teach educate people on cooking, history, sports, and music to but name a few. And because so many of us have grown accustomed to some trash television we just need to stop and think if this or that show is appropriate for ourselves or our children.
I think it is safe to say that over the year’s television and movies have pressed the envelope, to see what they might be able to get away with showing to viewers. Too many people are carrying out acts that they see or play on television and we have seen this for many years. Violent video games and horror movies are more of a part of our society than ever. Hence this could be why we have become so much more of a violent society. Sex is talked about on the radio and in even all our sitcoms and in movies and could be why engaging in meaningless sexual encounters or extra martial affairs is not such a big deal to many in this nation any more. This is another valuable thing that has changed the society we know today and I believe has really hurt this country. A simple way to solve this problem is push the kids and yourself outside more and do fun things in life instead of being more tuned on the television.
If you turn on the News anymore or Nightly News and not matter where you are in this country, it seems like rape and assault are common most nights. Even rape on television by many adults on young children are something we hear about almost nightly. These mentioned studies flatly show that what our media and television, shows put an imprint on our lives and how many of us act. I think many of the networks know what they show is filth, but in this capitalist society it is all about making money. As long as many people view bad things on television it will keep getting the advertiser to keep the show on. I will get into that subject later in this book and hopefully that will show also where we are defeating our very selves. Television has so much crossed the boundaries that there are many people who no longer even have televisions in their homes. Many people just are so tired of the stress they had to endure watching some of the filth on television and the news of today is just too depressing.
There was another study done and this study was called the National Television Violence Study (NTVS). This study showed that during a three year period it investigated ten thousand hours of different violent programs. It showed that 60% of all TV programs have violent content of some nature on them. Three quarters of these programs showed violent things being down and there was no remorse for the person’s actions. So what is this saying to its viewers? That it is Ok to make one suffer or punch them in the face and when it is done not to feel bad in any way. Watch that enough and you may truly believe that you can act in society in that manner and it is OK. It is not OK to punch a person because you may disagree with them.
It is safe to say with this much violence without remorse it has been programmed into some to feel this way in America. So many people look at this violence they see on TV and in violent video games as an ordinary way of life. Where did some of the wholesome shows of the 1950’s and 1960’s shows like Leave It to Beaver go? Shows where kids understood the parents were to be respected and when they were told to do something they did it. Sometimes I see myself watching those older shows I guess to get a reprieve from the junk on television today. There were shows like the Brady Bunch in the 1970’s and 80’s where you could laugh but also respect that there were rules that had to be followed. There are not as many of these good shows on anymore and thus we have seen a society that has become a little more selfish and disrespectful towards others.
I think so many Classic movies have passed the test of time because people like to watch and see how people were in the 40’s and 50’s. They like to see clean cut individuals who respected and cared about one another. They enjoy seeing a man pull out the chair for a lady and when they interact with one another it is with respect. There are many classic movie channels today that are purely dedicated to the older classic movies. Stations like the Turner Classic Movie Station, that shows movies with Jimmy Stewert, Rock Hudson, Fred Astair, Humprey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, to name a few. It is so refreshing sometimes to watch these older movies for some of us, where we can take a step back into some of what life used to be in this country. Sure these are movies but you can see how people interacted with one another and there just seemed to be more of a calmness in their personalities and more gentile way of people.
In many of these movies, many people today laugh, when they see the actors actually using manners and not having to resort to foul language all the time. Believe it or not there was a time when you could get your point across without using bad language in all your language. The sexual encounters in many of the movies in the 1950’s and 60’s were left only for the imagination. In today’s society, even on national televised networks it is not uncommon to see men and women in bed together talking about sex and orgasms, and that is because the world is so open about sex. Many of that stuff would serve itself well to be left for the Rated R movies and that way it will not cross the ears of our young people. Many people need to realize that these movies in many ways depicted how life really was lived in those days and you only wish some of the manners of yesterday were here today.
People dressed a lot more clean cut, and did not have tattoos from their heads to the toes to express themselves. Every person has a right to wear tattoos if they desire but when they cover almost all of ones body it can be tough on the eyes for many people. Today a lot of people paint th