How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

Media can be helpful as a tool to promote healthy living and lifestyles. News broadcasts can influence society’s views on how to be healthy. These broadcasts do this by illustrating how to make healthy choices. News broadcasts have the ability to shift society’s focus from obesity and weight loss to healthier eating and being more active. They draw attention to the need for policies on things such as fast food marketing to youth and the quality of foods in schools. News programs promote healthy eating by shaping people’s perceptions of nutrition and physical activity issues.

Any news channel has the ability to encourage your views on health. Reporting only one side of a story can lead to society viewing a situation in only one way rather than looking at the bigger picture. When the news presents a story about obesity, or diabetes and focuses solely on the genetic issue of the disease it enables people to associate the diseases with genetics and not living a healthy lifestyle. Although this can be a commonality among news programs the diversity of news programs available and the way that they are presented to society enables people to have a better understanding of their health.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

Although some would argue they do not watch the news every day, there are television programs that do incorporate information from the daily news such as, “The Daily Show”, “Colbert Report”, and “20/20” that people do watch. In a study by Pew Research Center, they concluded that “Americans are spending more time with the news than over much of the past decade” (Pew). Each of these shows satire or comedy aside grapples with the issues of health and wellness.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

In a survey conducted by myself fifty people were questioned about 5 news programs available on television Each person was asked to check off the box of any of the shows they have watched, even if only for 15 minutes, within the past week. The available shows to be selected from were 5 different news programs or networks that mention health and wellness: a daily news program, “The Daily Show”, “CNN”, “20/20”, and “The Colbert Report”. Of the 5 programs asked about an average of 3 out of 5 were selected. After selecting the news programs that they watched each was asked if at one point during the week one of these programs mentioned nything about health or physical activity.

Of the fifty people asked there was an overwhelming response of one hundred percent, fifty out of fifty said at one point one of these shows seen within the last week spoke about health or physical activity. Through this survey it can be concluded that television does provide people with the knowledge needed to make healthy choices in life. News programs have the ability to mold our minds and shape the way we perceive what is and is not healthy. In a recent story covered by ABC 7 News there was a report on how mother daughter workouts may be good for you.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

The report shows how working out is not the first thing you think of doing with mom but it should be. Fitness pro Angela Parker of Body Inspired Fitness, Santa Monica stated, “We have to feel strong and show ourselves that we are strong to go and make those healthier choices. Working out is a great way to go from the outside in to get to those deeper issues, it gives moms a chance to think about what are the messages I am sending to my daughter” (Parker). Reports like these and others have the ability to change public perception on how to spend family time in a more health beneficial way.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

Some may argue that working out is not something they do with a parent, but this story is motivational to work out with friends or family. During a news report on “The Daily Show with John Stewart” the issue of banning a toy received in a happy meal was reviewed. Interestingly enough the Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom is part of the opposition stating “it’s a bad idea, it’s the job of the parent to decide what their children eat not the governments” (Newsom). The opposition believes it is their American right to decide what they want to expose their children to.

How about a healthier and safer way to go about feeding your children? In covering the same issue “CNN” reported on a study: “Released by Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, which examined 12 popular restaurant chains and found only 12 out of more than 3,000 kids’ meal combinations met the nutritional guidelines for preschool-aged kids. The study said the fast food industry spent $4. 2 billion on advertising in 2009 and found that 40 percent of preschool-aged children ask to go to McDonald’s on a weekly basis, and 15 percent ask on a daily basis.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

Also, 84 percent of parents say they’ve taken their children to eat fast food at least once in the past week” (Martinez) Even though it took a satire approach to the story of banning toys in happy meals that don’t meet nutritional guidelines for children this news program made people aware of just how unhealthy fast food is for children. It also gave rise to the question if the food from a fast food chain is not good enough for children how is it good enough for an adult? Provided the facts, not recognizing that Television influences health and wellness in a positive manner is simply illogical.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.

Television is a source of knowledge when it comes to making healthy choices in life. What is even better is that everyone can have access to a television whether it is at a gym, at home, in a restaurant, even in jail. Television shows help us to make the right decisions when it comes to feeding our children, is that happy meal really what you need to feed your child? It enhances society’s knowledge of physical health, and the benefits last a lifetime. It is time we start to take advantage of the resources at hand and use our television news programs for health advice.How Media Influences Our Health Essay.