United States: Although it could be alluring to binge-watch TV, a recent study indicates that spending less time on the sofa promotes good ageing. Spending time uselessly watching TV can even make some mental health related issues study suggests.
Long-Term Study of Over 45,000 Participants
This study examined twenty years’ worth of data on over 45,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study. When the study started, each participant was free of chronic illness and at least 50 years old in 1992.
Monitoring Sedentary Behavior and Activity Levels
Researchers monitored the time participants spent sitting at work, at home, and watching television. They also recorded how much time participants spent standing or walking at home after work. All of that information was contrasted with data regarding their age-related health (or lack thereof).
Defining Healthy Ageing
How was “healthy aging” defined? According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health team, it means having no significant chronic illnesses, no memory loss, and general good physical and mental health to live to be 70 years of age or beyond.
Negative Impact of TV Watching
The researchers discovered that watching TV while seated appears to be an especially unhealthy habit.
“Participants with insufficient sleep had better odds of healthy ageing when they substituted light physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity, or sleep for television time,” according to a team led by Dr. Molin Wang, an associate professor of medicine in the Harvard Department of Epidemiology.
Specifically, a person’s probabilities increased by one hour per day when they substituted even “light” physical activity at home (such doing regular housework) for sedentary TV watching.
A exercise or other “moderately vigorous” physical activity might replace that hour of TV watching, and the study concluded that this would increase the likelihood of good ageing by 28%.
If people slept an additional hour every day instead of spending an hour watching TV from their sofa, even those who slept fewer than the minimum seven hours each night would benefit from healthy ageing.
The results were released in the journal JAMA Network Open on June 11.
Expert Insights on TV and Lifestyle Choices
Speaking with CNN, Dr. Andrew Freeman of National Jewish Health in Denver, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness, observed that watching TV seems to be an especially unhealthy activity—and not just because you’re not moving about.
“Watching TV usually brings with it all these other co-morbid activities, like eating junk food, having TV dinners, not interacting with people, and it can even interfere with sleep,” Freeman pointed out. He did not participate in the recent study.
And exercise can help with that, in any form and for whatever long you can. According to Freeman, it’s “truly an unbelievable way to reduce blood pressure and cardiovascular risk.”
Study Publication
“I strongly advise you to look into getting a standing desk at work, or even a treadmill desk if you have the space and can manage it,” Freeman stated. “It’s probably too long to sit for longer than thirty minutes at a time, and you should really try to move around a little bit,” the speaker said.