Just like magazines claiming to be eco-friendly when they print on non-recycled newspaper, this whole idea about TV Turnoff Week is a complete farce.

The government-pushed effort asks parents and kids to keep the flat screen in the off position, so they can do more active things, like walk to Taco Bell for chalupas or chase down the ice cream truck on their bikes.

But why are we blaming the entertainment industry for Americans' need to walk sideways down an airplane aisle?

But most Americans know it, and if they don't, they won't find a solution or even much enlightenment by skipping "Gossip Girl" or "American Idol."

We didn't sink this deep into the couch overnight, and getting off it will require redirecting a whole lot more than the remote.

While television is a visible symptom that takes much of the hit for our sedentary lives, it wasn't TV programmers who spent the last century inventing things that do more and more of our work for us.

TV didn't cut down on phys ed programs in schools and simultaneously rechannel physical activity into structured programs instead of running-around fun.

It wasn't just TV that sugared up our diet and made fast-food the gold standard for meals.

And it sure wasn't TV that sent kids to the Internet, computer games, IM and txt msgs. Those pastimes, the fastest-growing segments of media today, are yanking kids away from television, not driving them toward it.

So the misguided idea that turning off the TV for a week will make us all lean and mean is a little like an infomercial.

The headline sounds good until you realize that the fine print pretty much negates it. [NYDN]