Technology Linked to Obesity
Technology is an ever-growing resource that has become part of children’s everyday lives. Kids are spending more time with their computers and less time outside playing. From texting while driving to tuning out the world with loud music technology is taking over the future generations. Over the past 20 years the obesity rate has rapidly grown. Some say that one major contributing factor is technology and media that promotes inactive behavior. However others say that technology is the future and cannot be directly linked to obesity in the U.S. there are also those who think that technology isn’t necessarily a main factor in obesity but rather the users decision.
Technology provides value, convenience, and entertainment. Since the invention of the telephone technology has grown exponentially. With the 1980’s and the birth of the World Wide Web technology took an explosive discovery for the generations to come. Don Tapscott’s article The Net Generation describes the technological generations as a, “88 million kids in Canada and the U.S. are already combining demographic muscle with digital mastery to become a force for social transformation”(Tapscott, 1). This new generation learns, works, plays, communicates, shops, and creates societies very differently than their parents. IPods, IPhones, Wii, and iTunes are all examples of the types of technological devices that consume children’s everyday social interactions with each other. To members of this new technologically savvy generation, a phone is not a phone. It is a portable computer that they use to tweet, surf the web, update Facebook status’ and, of course, texting. The question is, are these new technological breakthroughs helping or hurting the future of the children? Tapscott later goes on to say “Human beings, not technology, are responsible for their behavior. Technology is always meant to be a tool for human productivity, not the replacement for responsible decision making” (Tapscott, 1). It is not technology that is physically keeping children from being active but rather their own lack of willingness do step away from technology.
On the other hand there are those who say that technology is causing our future generations to be less active and ultimately leading to the ever growing obesity numbers in children. There can be several different reasons why people think technology is causing obesity. As technology plays an increasingly fundamental part of human life, it is leading people to rely on technology to perform even the basics of physical labor, which once accounted for significant calorie expenditure. More than 40 studies have been conducted on the matter, and many indicate that the availability of technology contributes to an inactive lifestyle and weight gain in children. There is also television, which they say, is a major factor in childhood obesity. “Two-thirds of infants and toddlers sit in front of a television for more than two hours everyday” (Cespedes, 1). The article later goes on to say, “Unhealthy weight