Depending on how much you know about health care and the medical field you may or may not notice all the missteps that happen regularly on TV shows. Despite the occasional mispronunciation of a medical term by an actor, the "hollywoodizing" (yeah, I know that's not actually a word) goes much deeper. The most commonly exaggerated or misrepresented issues are:

• Organ donation
• Nurses roles
• Range of doctors' expertise
• Frequency of hospital romances

We all know that TV isn't real, and that everything is sensationalized for entertainment value. But it is sad that organ donation specifically is often portrayed negatively -- people have a hard enough time making that decision!

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The invention of the TV seems to coincide perfectly with our downfall as a healthy and active society, and most of the news you hear linking health and TV are not on "the boob tube's" side. But unless you're willing to move to the mountains, live off the earth, and become a hermit there's really no avoiding the TV altogether. We need some TV, if just to stay educated and in touch, right?

Well here's one article that agrees. In a recent study TV watching was actually shown to help healthy habits, not hinder them. Of course what you're watching matters, and the study was fairly limited in that it only tracked people watching one program: ER. But it seems that after people watched a series of ER episodes involving a teenager with high blood pressure who was advised to exercise and eat more fruits and veggies they were 65% more likely to make healthy changes to their diet. And it was also noted that after Oprah made mention of a Chinese weight loss tea the hits to the website skyrocketed.

So we know television is a powerful tool, now if we could just figure out how to use it for good! When an ER episode is followed by a Burger King commercial do they cancel each other out?

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TV and obesity go hand in hand, there's no doubt about that. But are some shows worse than others when it comes to eating more and gaining weight? That is actually true, according to recent research. At first my thought was that boring TV, like when you're just surfing around because there's nothing better to do, leads to more mindless snacking, but that's not the case at all. The more entertaining the show, the more people eat.

It has to do with being distracted, and when you're distracted by that awesome movie, you pay less attention to your body's signals telling you you're full and have had enough. You just keep on eating, happy and oblivious.

Wow, that sucks!

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My first reaction to reading about the world's smallest wearable TV was something like "how desperate are we to watch TV? Now we have to wear it and take it with us everywhere?" Yep, apparently having videos on an iPod wasn't enough, after all you do have to hold the iPod to view it. That's too hard! We want to wear our televisions! On our faces!!

This is both really cool and really ridiculous at the same time. The only handy feature I can think of is if they make a version to be used during walking or jogging -- it could be the perfect "excuse buster" for that couch potato type who can't pull themselves away long enough to get up and exercise. Just be sure to watch where you're going.

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I can't count the number of times I've headed home from work with a healthy diet-conscious dinner planned, only to have my willpower botched at the last minute when I turn on the evening news and catch a well-timed Pizza Hut commercial. Suddenly my steamed veggies don't sound very good.

According to the media research company A.C. Nielsen, the average American will have spent the equivalent of 9 years in front of the tube by the time they're 65. Nine years! That's a ridiculous amount of time. And research supports the fact that TV makes you hungry and is linked to the rising incidence of obesity. So, while those 9 years are racking up and we're parked in front of the TV watching our favorite shows, we're not exercising but we are eating. Having dinner on the couch, snacking afterwards, and then popping a quick midnight snack before starting it all over again tomorrow.

TV has its place, but "everything in moderation" seems to be the key. Keep up on the news, watch your favorite shows, but try turning it off once you find yourself aimlessly flipping through channels. You might add years to your life!

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