It's Turn Off the TV Week, an admirable goal that's been adopted by the California Obesity
Prevention Initiative. I think it's a fine experiment for families to try. Excessive TV viewing is being linked to all kinds childhood pathologies -- none of them are good.

According to Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle, some San Francisco area school officials are joining children across the country participating in the annual TV-Turnoff Week, but not for the same reasons as most schools. In 2001, the event started as a way to address health issues, with the idea that children were spending too much time on the couch watching television and not enough time interacting with family or exercising.

However, schools like Visitacion Valley in the Bay Area are looking for ways to reduce violence and aggression in the community and on the schoolyard -- and they've put television and video games on the list. Research has found that children who cut back on screen time are less verbally and physically aggressive on the playground, said Stanford Associate Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Thomas Robinson.

For Adbusters, it's more about having our kids bombarded with unwelcome and unhealthy commercial messages.

"It's about saying no to unfettered corporate media concentration and to the democratic deficit that results. And it's about challenging the heavily distorted reflection of the world that we see on the screen, a reflection that is keeping us ill-informed and unaware of the very real political and environmental crises that we all currently face.

I've never really tried this experiment in the family with kids in the house. Have you? Share! My inclination is that it wouldn't be a big deal at the moment, since our teenager in residence is far more attached to the computer than the TV.

Do you need any more reasons to take a week off? The American Academy of Pediatrics has an exceptional list of guidelines about TV on its Web site: