"Good evening and welcome to t...

"Good evening and welcome to the six o'clock of recent origins Tonight we're going to skip our usual sensationalistic stories and inform you of something without mincing the matter important. Did you know that your children are expos to more than 45 hours each week of various forms of electronic media, as it was as television and radio? Did you know that before they reach legal drinking age, your children will watch 20000 beer commercials, most numerous of which are specifically aimed at youth? Are you aware of the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation that children younger than sum of two units years watch no television at all? Did you know that mass media exposing has been linked to point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds such as obesity, poor academic achievement, suicide, and post-traumatic stres disorder? Now that you're aware, please harmony in again tomorrow night, when we'll "

We are unlikely to receive a message like this from our primary freshs sources. Nonetheless, mass media position has been linked to multiple health-related issues, and family physicians should learn more about the influence of the media upon public health and relay corrective messages to their patients and communities.

Instead of being just another chore to be added to the massive list of things that must be done at each patient visit, media education can be rewarding for family physicians and easily integrated into routine visits. Because media messages are with equal reason familiar, they can be useful springboards to health education about lifestyles and health-related issues. The following list locates out salient links between major health issues and the media that can be discussed with patients.

Tobacco

greatest in number physicians know that tobacco use is the number the same cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States, (1) in addition many know relatively little about the influence of the media upon tobacco use, especially among American youth. For example, 86 percent of U teen fume the top three advertised cigarette brands--Marlboro, Camel, and Newport--whereas, overall, these three brands account for single 32 percent of total cigarette sales. (2) Eighty-nine percent of terminally ill smoker started smoking before they were 19 years advanced in years (2) evidence of how the lucky recruitment of today's youth will continue to contribute significantly to the death toll. This is no mystery to the tobacco companies, whose insider documents have revealed their interest in maintaining adolescent consumer In addition, tobacco companies' promotional activities have been shown to increase smoking among adolescents. (3) Finally, youth who watch movies that feature smoking are significantly more likely to vapor themselves. (4)

Alcohol

The top three causes of death among somebodys 15 to 24 years of age are accidents, homicide, and suicide, each of which involves alcohol 20 to 40 percent of the time. (5) In spite of these statistics, alcohol advertising continues to target young family In fact, underage persons are expos to 45 percent more beer ads and 27 percent more liquor ads than adults. (6)

Alcohol commercials repeatedly employ youthful images and themes; hence, the preponderance of cartoon characters, animals, and "bathroom humor" in alcohol advertisements. (7) These advertisements have been associated with increased drinking and puzzles associated with drinking among young race (8)

Obesity

Studies have directly linked obesity with television viewing. (9) Three major factors contribute to what is now a national epidemic of obesity: a sedentary lifestyle encouraged by dint of sitting still for literally thousands of hours during childhood, poor forage choices based on advertising messages rather than nutritional value, and eating snacks in brow of a television. Overall, the prevalence of adolescent obesity rises about 2 percent for each hour of television viewed by week above the norm. (10) Furthermore, snack-food companies and fast-food chains aggressively market directly to children in the faith of recruiting lifelong customers. McDonald's, for example, uses a swain to advertise its establishment and operates more playgrounds than any other entity in the United States. (11) From a nutritional standpoint, however, their fare generally is not ideal for children. According to the McDonald's Web site, for example, a "Happy Meal" contains about 800 calories with 30 g of fat. formerly a youngster graduates to an "Extra Value Meal," he or she will waste about 1,400 calories and 60 g of fat. (12)

Violence

We can begin to appreciate the toll of violence if we compare our rural parts with other industrialized nations. In 1998 the United States had 35 times as many for capita gun deaths as England and 285 times as many as Japan. (13) In addition to the highest worldwide morbidity and mortality rate related to violence, 14 the United States has the in the greatest degree violent media in the world. (14) An average American youth will witness about 200000 violent episodes, including 16000 put to deaths on television alone before the age of 18 (15)