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TV Turnoff Week
| Name | Marilyn Peters | | Situation | Childhood obesity is now epidemic in the United States. One in ten children are obese and one in five are overweight. Later in life, these children risk suffering from obesity's attendant diseases including diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure,and arthritis.
Already, more than one in four adults in the US are obese. With its
accompanying health risks, obesity causes an estimated 300,000
premature deaths each year. It is now the number two preventable cause of death in the United States, behind smoking.
The average American child spend 19 hours and 40 minutes watching TV each week. This practice consumes the time that could be spent in healthy physical activity, in meaningful discussions, reading, pursuing hobbies, or providing public service.
Instead, that time is dedicated to a sedentary activity that promotes an unhealthy lifestyle. Watching excessive television undermines parental involvement, squelches political awareness, hampers education, and promotes overconsumption, obesity, and violence. | | Response | COACH, our local Coalition Organized to Address Children's Health, planned and coordinated TV Turnoff Week. It was approved in advance by the superintendent of schools, the school principals, and the school nurses, who coordinated individual school components.
The event had several components, including contests in the schools. In the elementary schools, we organized a poster contest and a "longest list of things to do instead of watching TV" contest. In the middle schools, we organized an essay contest and in the high schools a "top 10 list of reasons to turn off the TV." A kit was developed for the schools to suggest other activities for the week, and the school nurses coordinated and promoted the contests and activities.
Each night during TV-Turnoff Week, we had community activities that children could attend during hours they otherwise would have sat in front of the television. Monday was a mock funeral for a TV set (by high school drama class, creative writing class and National Honor Society (NHS) Students;) Tuesday was a sing-along planned and led by the NHS students; Wednesday was a bike rodeo; Thursday was storyhour at the library; and Friday was the finale where all of the contest prizes were awarded.
The weekend prior to the event, we had a TV-Turnoff Week float in
Walterboro's Rice Festival parade, and a booth at the Rice Festival
to exhibit the winning posters, essays, lists, etc.
There was tremendous community support and involvement. Businesses, agencies and the local hospital donated supplies and money for prizes, including a T-shirt silk-screened with the winning poster (for the poster contest winner), a gift card from the local sporting goods store for the essay contest winner, and a bicycle >awarded through a drawing of kids' pledge cards (pledging to watch no more than 1 hour of TV each day during TV-Turnoff Week).
The media provided extensive coverage of the event: 5 newspaper articles in the local papers (with photos), two radio shows on the local station, and one radio show ("Your Day") on the SCETV radio station (going statewide). | | Impact | While the local schools have not yet completed surveys to determine long-term impact, research by the National TV Turnoff Network indicates that more than 60 percent of TV Turnoff Week participants reduce their TV time permanently. Considering the extent of participation in Colleton County, we expect the impact to be considerable.
The sponsors of this event were:
COACH
Jus' Sports
Clear Vision
Colleton Medical Center
Herndon & Sons Funeral Home
Lowcountry Office Supply
Clemson Extension
School Nurses of Colleton County
National Honor Society, CCHS
Creative Writing Class, CCHS
Drama Club, Family Christian Academy |
Last update5/9/2008
This website is maintained by Amy West.
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