Why does TV-watching appear to increase our risk of being overweight?
Posted on 12 May 2008
Published May 12, 2008 . Filed under: Unhealthy Eating!, Weight Loss
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We only watch the rugby on TV too. I once worked out that the number of rugby matches we see each year must be costing us about
May 12, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Firstly, thanks for a consistently interesting blog. There is nearly always something thought prevoking and left of field.
With regard to activity levels and weight. My understanding is that there is very little, if any, evidence to suggest that exercise is an effective means of inducing weight loss. I have never come across a study that doucments that increased activty will result in x amount of weight loss. Of course this may be because insufficent studies have been undertaken or that those that have have been poorly designed or have failed to separate out the respective contributions of diet and exercise (and other factors).
Gary Taubes suggests that there is a tendancy to compensate for increased energy output by increasing food consumption: that exercise helps to work up an appetite. My own suspicion is that exercise is more subtle than that. Maybe its beneficial by means of improving insulin sensitivty and thereby contributing towards reducing fasting insulin levels and improved fat metabolism. I have a hunch that the exercise needs to be of sufficient duration (30 mins plus) and intensity (80% max heart rate or more) and consistency (daily) to have optimal benefit.
The reverse may be true with regard to TV watching. The body clearly wasn’t designed to sit indoors, pretty much perfectly still, for 3 hours plus a day, staring at a TV secreen. This may well reduce insulin sensitivity. Additionally it won’t help with issues such as exposure to sunlight for vitamin D levels.
Ironically I think one of the msot unhealthy pastimes is watching sport on TV. Watching cricket and football whlist having a few cans of beer and slices of pizza must rank among the most unhelathy ways of passing time. Far better to get and of the house and watch a game live. Admittedtly you need friends in high places with regard to the 6 nations.
Just a few observations.
May 13, 2008 @ 9:05 am
Interesting topic; this one has been on my mind for a long time. I doubt there is any one particular factor about TV watching that is the smoking gun, but perhaps a variety of environmental factors with cumulative effects, which when added to genetic & physiological factors, make TV watching associated with negative health outcomes.
For instance, many elderly people watch an enormous amount of TV. Elderly people often have poor health (or vice versa), are socially isolated, have high rates of depression;then again, it is a chicken or egg question? Do people stay in and isolate themselves to watch TV or do they watch TV because they stay in and isolate themselves? Do they sit and watch TV because they are physically weak, or are they weak because they sit and watch TV?
It’s been interesting observing the changes (from afar, in the US) in my 80 yo MIL’s life the past year since she went from living very independently to moving to London and in with her unmarried mid-40s working daughter. Despite less time in solitude now, she watches a good deal more TV than she used to, and is less selective about the TV programming content (she used to primarily watch news, political talk shows, and what she considered “highbrow” drama). Now, I think the TV is on all the time she is alone (while my SIL is working) thoguh she says she is catching up on her reading now that she doesn’t have to care for a garden and house
. On one hand, I can see that my MIL’s social isolation increased in some ways by moving away from her very familiar medium sized academic city community to bustling London (she no longer participates in Amnesty International (though her isolation had been increasing as her elderly friends had moved or passed away in the last five years), yet she now had more daily companionship with my SIL. But my MIL’s independence rapidly decreased a great deal overall following the move, and she now spends a great deal more time alone indoors on her own, mostly watching TV. I think, despite the interesting “town-like” neighborhood, the bustle of the larger city environment is intimidating and tends to keep her in more than before. Ultimately, despite now having my SIL to cook for her and assist her, she is more rapidly becoming physically weaker and dependent from lack of movement. I’m not sure that the pace would have been as fast had she remained living independently.
Chicken or the egg, again. Hard to blame the TV directly, but it certainly fits intimately into the picture. And of course, the thing that everyone feared, happened about year after the move; she fell getting out of bed in the night (it’s classic; she slipped in the dark on a magazine on the floor next to the bed, getting up to use the toilet), but my SIL was there to assist (hairline fracture on tibia). She’s healed well, but it was an ordeal for all involved and resulted in more sedentary days and TV shows. But I can’t help but wonder if she was more prone to the fall and injury *because* she became physically weaker, sitting more, doing less, when she no longer had to maintain so much independence. No way to know what would have happened had she remained on her own, but it’s hard not to think that perhaps some aspects, like the excessive TV watching and increased sedentariness haven’t been good, despite less worry about her being alone all the time.
Late night TV watching also can disrupt the sleep cycles, which can really mess with health and well-being in many ways.
May 13, 2008 @ 8:00 pm