TUESDAY, June 11, 2024 (HealthDay News) — It’s tempting to binge watch TV, but another study finds that when it comes to healthy aging, the less time you spend on the couch, the better.
The study analyzed 20 years of data from more than 45,000 people who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study. All were at least 50 years old in 1992 and had no chronic diseases when they entered the study.
The researchers tracked lifestyle habits, such as time spent sitting at work, at home and watching television, as well as hours spent at home or at work. All of that data was compared with information about how healthy (or unhealthy) they had aged over time.
What defined “healthy aging”? According to the team at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, it meant living to age 70 or older, without major chronic illnesses, without memory impairment, and with overall good physical and mental health.
One activity, watching television while sitting, seemed particularly unhealthy, the researchers found.
“Replace TV time with light physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity, or sleep [en los participantes con sueño inadecuado] was associated with better odds of healthy aging,” wrote a team led by Dr. Molin Wang, an associate professor of medicine in the department of epidemiology at Harvard University.
More specifically, each hour per day in which sedentary television viewing was replaced by even “light” physical activity at home (e.g., routine housework) increased the odds that a person would live to 70 or healthier in a 8%.
If that hour of TV watching was replaced by “moderately vigorous” physical activity (for example, a workout), the odds of healthy aging increased by 28 percent, the study found.
Even people who slept less than the recommended seven hours a night saw a healthy aging benefit if they slept an extra hour each day instead of an hour watching TV from their couch.
The findings were published in the June 11 issue of JAMA Network Open.
Speaking to CNN, Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, said watching TV seems to be a particularly unhealthy activity, and not just because you’re not moving.
“When people sit in front of the TV, it usually brings with it all of these other comorbid activities, like eating junk food, eating dinner on TV, not connecting with others, and it can even disrupt sleep,” Freeman noted. She was not involved in the new study.
And exercise, any way you can get it and for any period of time, can change all that. It’s “really an incredible way to reduce cardiovascular risk and blood pressure,” Freeman said.
“My suggestion is that you consider getting a standing desk at work if you can, or even a desk with a treadmill if you can and have the space,” Freeman said. “If you’re sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time, in my book, that’s probably too long, and you really want to try to move around a little bit.”
More information
Learn more about the health dangers of sitting at Yale University.
SOURCES: JAMA Network Open, June 11, 2024; cnn
