Too much television may shorten your life

| 17/08/2011

(Guardian): Watching too much television could shorten your life, a study suggests. Research carried out in Australia, and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, showed that every hour of TV watched after the age of 25 may shorten lifespan by 22 minutes. According to one of the report's authors, Dr Lennert Veerman, from the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland, it puts long hours spent in front of the box "in the same ballpark as smoking and obesity". "While smoking rates are declining, watching TV is not, which has implications at a population level," he said.

Last year, another Australian study found an hour of TV a day led to an 8% increase in the risk of premature death.

"We've taken that study and translated it into what it means for life expectancy in Australia given how much TV we watch," said Veerman.

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