Followers

I remember hearing the term this morning, and although I'd heard it before it actually registered this time -- bloggers or tweeters want "followers".  Like friends on Facebook or something, it creates this feeling of importance, doesn't it?  What an age we live in, that we can all be international publishers and broadcasters from our home computers. 

Used to be that only religions and cult leaders had followers.  Not sure I like the idea of anyone following me.

Anyhoo, this past weekend I actually interrupted all of the "screen time", got myself and the kids bundled up and went into the backyard to build a snowman.  Well actually, the 4-year old didn't want to wait for the finished product, so we ended up with 3 large snowballs toppled on the ground that we turned into a snowfort.  Another snowfort later, and we were off to the snowball fight races. 

An hour of getting soaking wet and rosy cheeks, and it felt like childhood.

I think what got me off my butt was a psa that my wife found online about childhood obesity being linked with screen time - can't find it now, but the statistic was sobering.  Some ad with a child's head on an obese adult's body in a doctor's office? 

The best I could find with a little searching was:

In 2004, over a third (36%) of children aged 6 to 11 logged more than 2 hours of screen time each day.

These children were twice as likely to be overweight/obese as were those whose daily viewing

totalled an hour or less (35% versus 18%), and about twice as likely to be obese (11% versus 5%).

A little lame I know since it's from 2004, but I always say that Canada's about 5 years being in everything.

http://lifestyle.ca.msn.com/family-parenting/health-safety/ymc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=24825106

http://www.obesitycanada.com/