Is T.V. Killing You?

A recent study published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, revealed the results of a six year Australian study that suggests the amount of television you watch daily may shorten your life span and put you at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease. Australian researchers found people who sat in front of the tube for four or more hours a day indicated an 80% greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 46% increased risk of all other causes of death compared to those who watched two or less hours of television a day.

In my opinion, our brains have been dying at an alarming rate thanks to the trashy, mindless and fake reality television shows that consume American society today. Unfortunately, that is just my own hypothesis based on observations of society completely void of any credible scientific data. All that aside, this study points yet again to the mounting evidence on the dangers of sedentary habits many people and unfortunately children lead in this day in age.

"What we showed was that irrespective of a person's exercise level, sitting for four or more hours watching television was linked to a significant increase in risk of death compared to watching lower amounts of TV," said Dr. David Dunstan, lead author of the study and professor and head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria, Australia. "The message here is that in addition to promoting regular exercise, we also need to promote avoiding long periods of sitting, such as spending long hours in front of the computer screen."

To him, the results weren't unexpected. "When we're in that sitting posture, we're not using our muscles, and we know from extensive evidence that muscle contractions are important for the body's regulatory processes, such as the ability to break down glucose and use it as energy."-L.A. Times

 I can't say it enough, we have to move around! The more hours we sit around watching television, surfing the net or just vegging out on the couch, the less our body metabolizes energy efficiently. This leads back to my recent blog on lipase, a fat and cholesterol metabolizing enzyme that is deactivated after a couple hours of inactivity. Let's look at a fairly typical day for most people: sit at a job for eight hours a day, sit watching t.v. and surfing the net for three or four hours a day, sit and eat for a total of an hour throughout the day, go to the gym and sit on a bike or some machines for an hour, then go home and sleep for another eight hours. Even time spent at the gym for a lot of people is spent sitting down! The key to health, fitness and longevity is increasing our activity levels over a 24 hour period so that our body is active and burning calories more often than not. You can take the stairs, walk to the mail box, park further from the store in the parking lot and stand up while you talk on the phone! There are many simple solutions, for Pete's sake, just stand up and move!