Sit less, watch less TV, live longer
Baku, July 11 (AZERTAC). According to the Utah Department of Health more than 30 percent of Utah boys and girls aged 5 to 17 watch more than two hours of television daily during weekdays. On weekends that figure climbs to over 73 percent among girls. And all of this may be decreasing their lifespan according to a study released June 9, 2012 in the British Medical Journal BMJ Open.
Several previous studies have found that excess time sitting and watching TV decreases your lifespan and increases your risk of a number of health conditions, including the number one killer in America, heart disease. One study even found that less sedentary time resulted in an increase in other healthy behaviors.
As part of the current study, researchers evaluated data collected for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from 2005/06 and 2009/10 and published articles from the research database MEDLINE. They then combined these data to calculate the number of deaths and the relative population risk of dying associated with time spent sitting down.
Remarkably, excessive sitting time increased the population risk of dying from all causes of mortality 27 percent, while long periods of TV watching was associated with a 19 percent increase. Furthermore, researchers concluded that restricting TV time to less than two hours daily could extend life expectancy by 1.38 years. Spending less than three hours seated per day might increase life expectancy by two years according to the research.
The study findings suggest that increasing physical activity during the day is an important factor in promoting longevity. This at a time when more and more Americans work jobs that require long hours sitting and spend much of their leisure time inactive in front of a computer or the TV.
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