Many professionals claim that when it comes to food and exercise, food may actually be less important to obesity than exercise. Exercise is considered to be one of the most effective and natural way to shed pounds. Lack of exercise of young people can be attributed to the fact that television viewing is at an all time high, video game availability is at an all time high, and also other cultural aspects play a large role. Surveys and research has shown that only about 20% of all young people take part in a vigorous activity only about 2 times a week. With this pointed out, the recommended amount of exercise that a young person should be getting a week is at least 3 periods of strenuous activities per week. This problem’s main cause comes from the television, which children take part in daily and which is also considered to be a sedentary activity. The big problem is not that children are watching television because television that is watched in moderation is fine, but the fact that most children chow down on foods that are fatty and high in calories for long periods of time. Another thing is that most commercials that advertise foods advertise those that are very unhealthy, which encourages young people to continue eating more and more. The average high school graduate will end up watching between 15,000 and 18,000 hours of television by the time that they have graduated. This is considered to be unacceptable considering the normal graduate only ends up spending about 12,000 hours in school. As all of the television watching increases, the amount of physical activity and exercise greatly decreases. Some of the suggestions that have been proposed to decrease television viewing and increase physical activity are to “limit children's total media time (with entertainment media) to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming per day, remove television sets from children's bedrooms, discourage television viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together, monitor the shows children and adolescents are viewing. Most programs should be informational, educational, and nonviolent, view television programs along with children, and discuss the content, use controversial programming as a stepping-off point to initiate discussions about family values, violence, sex and sexuality, and drugs, use the videocassette recorder wisely to show or record high-quality, educational programming for children, support efforts to establish comprehensive media-education programs in schools, encourage alternative entertainment for children, including reading, athletics, hobbies, and creative play,” (Kaufman).

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