• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, January 26, 2007

Nearing the pinnacle of irony, marketers, media companies, health groups, consumer groups and advertising associations will gather on one of the High Holy Days of unnecessary sugar and fat consumption--Valentine's Day--to discuss whether TV ads cause obesity in children. General Mills, McDonald's, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Viacom, Discovery Channel, Telemundo and the Black Family Channel will gather with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to look at "voluntary steps" that might head off federal legislation to distance your offspring from TV commercials for Count Chocula and the Texas Double Whopper.

But surely TV is not to blame just for childhood obesity? With Americans logging 60+ days of TV this year, the impact on mental and physical health certainly goes well beyond becoming a 10-year-old lard-ass. Consider these other TV-induced pandemic maladies:

Delusional Super Star Syndrome. Fueled by shows that promise to lift the marginally talented to unimaginable fame and fortune, thousands now stumble the earth like the living dead, dazed by the delusion that they can sing well enough to sell records, uh, I mean downloads. On display most frequently at sporting events where young women think that by singing the national anthem in a painfully drawn-out, exaggerated gospel/Motown vocalization, six music industry executives attending the local high school basketball game will rush the floor with recording contracts.

Network News Deficit Disorder. Caused by relying on 2-minute network news stories as the sole source of perspective on world and national events. Symptoms include boorish statements of the obvious at besotted dinner parties and the conviction that in spite of the Internet, the Great Eastern Establishment Jewish-Controlled Press still sets the news agenda.

Moronic Father Fever. Thanks to a plethora of similar sitcoms and commercials that portray fathers as the Family Idiot, children across the nation now regard their parent of the male persuasion as a sports-and-beer-and-tits-obsessed buffoon. Reinforced by fathers who watch ballgames all weekend, sipping beer and making jokes about the buxom neighbor.

Terroritis. Infection caused by exposure to shows that play off our collective national worst nightmare and cast the country as a seething cauldron of sleeper cells plotting to launch nuclear or germ warfare holocaust, especially in Los Angeles. Payback, perhaps, for failed sitcoms featuring the former Seinfeld cast entourage. Symptoms include suspicious side glances at subway/airplane/bus riders of Middle Eastern appearance who, tired of such annoying behavior, promptly join their neighborhood sleeper cell.

Abject Appointment Depression. Widespread emotional disorder caused by network failure to alert loyal viewers that next week's show will be a rerun, subbed out altogether, abruptly canceled or moved to another time slot. Appointment TV morphs into feelings of abandonment and rejection. Relief found in transference of loyalty to cable programming, DVDs and recorded shows.

Attitude Disarray. Modeling their own behavior on the ubiquitous "bad boy" character who wisecracks his way through most programming consumed by youngsters, children across the nation discover that parents are not nearly as amused as the studio audience laugh track--and find themselves in perpetual timeout, or banned from playing Xbox all day on Saturday. A small percentage of them find that corporal punishment is alive and well.

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