Tuesday, June 08, 2010

TV is Making You Fatter Than You Think

Not only is excess screen time making us more sedentary, thus increasingly overweight, but it can potentially make us even unhealthy. How so you ask? The Journal of the American Dietetic Association researchers taped 28 days of prime-time television as well as Saturday-morning programming on the four major broadcast networks. They identified 800 foods promoted in 3,000 ads and used a nutritional software program to analyze the content of the items, comparing the foods’ nutritional values with the government’s good guide pyramid and recommended daily intake values for various nutrients.

The results were pretty staggering. If Americans ate only foods advertised on TV, a new report says, they would consume 25 times the recommended amount of sugar and 20 times the amount of fat they need, but less than half the dairy, fiber, and fruits and vegetables.

Yet another reason to limit screen time.

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