Watching Too Much Television Leads to Early Death


According to a new study, too much time in front of the television is a leading cause of death in the United States.
Background information provided in the study states 92 percent of households in the United States have televisions in their homes, and 80 percent of Americans watch 3.5 hours daily of television, on average.
TV is the most prevalent manner to spend sedentary, leisure time. The researcher’s hypothesis is that the amount of time spent watching TV is indicative of a person’s overall physical activity--or lack thereof. The results of this study join a growing amount of research supporting the idea that sitting too much is detrimental to health.
Researchers followed over 221,000 individuals from age 50 to age 71 for 15 years. At the start of the study, no participant had any chronic disease(s).
The more time spent in front of the TV, the more likely a participant was to die from cancer, diabetes, flu/pneumonia, heart disease, Parkinson’s, or liver disease, according to the study’s findings.
Risk of early death was 15 percent higher for individuals who watched 3-4 hours each day and 47 percent higher for individuals who watched more than seven hours. Researchers took into account risk factors like alcohol intake, calorie intake, health problems, and smoking.
However, this study proved only association between TV viewing and early death by these diseases.
The death risk was associated with both inactive and active individuals in the study. Exercise was not found to eliminate risks with sitting and watching television for extended periods of time. Rather time spent sitting must be replaced with active time.

This study joins others regarding the risks to our health of sitting too much.