The average American is subjected to 247 television commercials daily. If you leave your house, surf the net or listen to the radio, you are the victim of 600 or more advertisements a day. That includes billboards and handmade roadside signs.That's a lot of visual and audio solicitation. No wonder our country suffers from "purchaser disease" and I have yet to see a commercial for a cure for that.

Children from the ages of 8 to 12 viewed the most commercials for fast food, sugared cereal, candies, chips, fast foods and sodas than any other demographic. The leader of these ads is Disney, MTV, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. The situation only gets worse during the Christmas season with toy, software and DVD ads.

During the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. adults are exposed to accident insurance companies and college commercials an average of 75 to 100 times a day. Cleaning products come in third with pharmaceutical ads coming in fourth place.

Networks, Bravo, Hallmark and Oxygen show commercials promoting their own shows an average of 30 times an hour.Some of their commercials are shown three times back to back. Other networks average 15 times an hour. The major networks have more advertisements for other products besides their own television line up.

Here are some statistics (provided by T.V.-Free America) that might make you want to go for that walk instead of watching that reality show marathon.

:Hours per day that televisions are on in the average home: 7hrs & 12 minutes.

Number of videos rented daily in the U.S.: 6,000,000

Percentage of families that watch television while eating dinner: 66%

Percentage of Americans who say that they watch too much television: 49%

Percentage of American family homes with at least one television: 98%

Percentage of toy advertising dollars spent on commercials: 98%

Number of ads aired for junk food on an average Saturday morning: 202

Percentage of shows dedicated to crime, rape, war and disaster: 58.3%

Percentage devoted to public service announcements: 0.7%

Percentage of 4 to 6 year olds who when asked, preferred to watch television than spend time with their father's: 54%

Hours per year that American children watch T.V.: 1500

Hours per year that American children are in school: 900

Percentage of teens who can name the city where the U.S. Constitution was written:25%

Percentage of teens who can find the city who has the zip code 90210: 75%

Percentage of children polled who said that they were :upset" or "scared by violence shown on television: 91%

Number of murders witnessed by children by the age of 18: 16,000

There is a 400% increase of homicide coverage by the news industry since 1990.

So in short, if you want to be a couch potato and sit in front of your flat screen for hours as your brains go on hiatus, feel free. But give your kids a chance to show you how damn awesome they are by taking them running, jumping, reading, playing baseball or basketball or talking your ear off as you take a stroll around the block. You just might be amazed at what phenomenal little people you have been given the honor to raise.

Also walking with your kids will give you a head start on getting rid of that third ass cheek that will miraculously appear during the winter season:)