August 16, 2011

Excercise Good, TV Bad

Get Lean The Lazy Way

Two news items today that apply to parents and kids alike. Simply put — exercise good, TV bad.

Also — floor down. Ceiling up.

Turns out that as little as 15 minutes of exercise per day can make you live longer. But! Watching TV could take that time away from you.

What to do?

The devil, of course, is in the details.

The exercise study was conducted by researchers in Taiwan and was published in Lancet, according to ABC News. The headline is “15 Minutes of Exercise Per Day Adds 3 Years to Life, Study Finds”; one of the authors of the study, Dr. Chi-Pang Wen, told ABC that, “The 30-minute a day for five or more days a week has been the golden rule for the last 15 years, but now we found even half that amount could be very beneficial.”

The TV study, described by ABC as “an analysis of Australian lifestyle data”, found that “every hour spent watching TV was estimated to lower life expectancy by nearly 22 minutes for those 25 and older”. If you’re like me and don’t want to do the math, that means “folks who sit in front of the tube for an average of six hours a day may lose nearly five years compared with those who don’t watch TV.”

Six hours a day of watching TV? That’s a lot of TV.

Here’s a question. What happens if you exercise while watching TV? Or use one of those exercise videos? Do the two activities cancel each other out? Do I need to exercise more so I can watch more TV? How much? Somebody do the math, dammit!

Anyway. The bottom line is the same. Exercise good, TV bad. The notion that “even a little exercise is better than none” is not a new one. We’re all looking for a way to be healthier without doing much. I’m certainly in that category. Finding time to exercise is difficult. The idea that 15-minutes a day is beneficial is vaguely motivating.

Then again, it’s football season. Lots of TV to watch.

15 Minutes of Exercise Per Day Adds 3 Years to Life, Study Finds [ABC News]

Time Watching Television May Shorten Life, Study Says [ABC News]

How to Stick to an Exercise Routine [MyHealthNewsDaily]

Get Lean The Lazy Way, 12 hassle-free exercises that you can do while watching TV image via Amazon.


This post was written by Daddy

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