Fit TV Watchers Just as Doomed as the Rest of Us

We all know that our sedentary lifestyles are killing us, so many of the more health conscious among us have taken to getting regular exercise in order to counteract the risks associated with spending so much time sitting on our asses. But guess what? That exercise is a complete waste of time if you're still spending several hours a day in front of a glowing screen. It turns out that regardless of how much exercise you get, your TV and computer are killing you. All that time you're spending at the gym might help you leave behind a fitter corpse, but that's about it.

Many of us sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, and then go home and head for the couch to surf the Web or watch television, exchanging one seat and screen for another. Even if we try to squeeze in an hour at the gym, is it enough to counteract all that motionless sitting?

[...]

The latest findings, published this week in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicate that the amount of leisure time spent sitting in front of a screen can have such an overwhelming, seemingly irreparable impact on one’s health that physical activity doesn’t produce much benefit.

The study followed 4,512 middle-aged Scottish men for a little more than four years on average. It found that those who said they spent two or more leisure hours a day sitting in front of a screen were at double the risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event compared with those who watched less. Those who spent four or more hours of recreational time in front of a screen were 50 percent more likely to die of any cause. It didn’t matter whether the men were physically active for several hours a week — exercise didn’t mitigate the risk associated with the high amount of sedentary screen time.

[NYT]