"After the age of 25, every hour of TV watching cuts almost 22 minutes off the viewer's lifespan." This is an eye-catching headline, and the claim of researchers from the University of Queensland, Australia.
In a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine researchers looked at the TV viewing habits of 11,000 adults in the decade-long Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle survey. They concluded that compared to adults who watch no TV, Australians who spend a lifetime average of 6 hours per day watching TV can expect to live 4.8 years less. You may wonder, who actually watches 6 hours of TV per day? According to the Harvard School of Public Health, in the U.S., people average about five hours of TV time each day.
As with any study or survey it can be difficult to determine if there is a direct cause and effect relationship. According to Dr. David L. Katz, founding director of the prevention research center at Yale University School of Medicine, "The more time we spend watching TV, the more time we spend eating mindlessly in front of the TV, and the less time we spend being physically active. That in turn means greater risk for obesity, and the chronic diseases it tends to anticipate, notably diabetes, heart disease and cancer."
Other studies have also pointed the finger at TV for contributing to health problems. A Harvard study of TV viewers showed two hours per day of TV time increases risks for developing type 2 diabetes by 20 percent and heart disease by 15 percent. More than three hours of daily viewing increased death risk across all diseases.
Interestingly, studies have also shown that it is not necessarily the "sit time" alone that contributes to obesity and disease. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, "there’s evidence that watching TV—and, especially, watching junk food ads on TV—promotes obesity by changing mainly what and how much people eat, less so by changing how much they move."
We are not condemning all TV viewing but we once again think we need to step back and look at the bigger picture. If an individual is watching 5 or 6 hours of TV per day, engaging in mindless eating while doing so, and not getting the recommended amount of daily exercise, then they probably will increase their risk of disease and die younger. However, will watching one hour of TV per day actually reduce your lifespan by 22 minutes if you have a healthful diet and are exercising? Also, what about the quality of the programming? Viewing that promotes thinking and learning has been shown to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's and dimentia. As with any other study, we suggest you look beyond the shock value of the headline and determine what useful information ,if any, you can take from it.
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