Alternative Health Blog

Favorite TV shows, your local professional sportteam, political campaigns, Jon Stewart, even the health segment on the evening news. Question: What do they all have in common?

Answer: Watching these things on TV can add up to a drag on your health goals—and that’s even if you are a regular exerciser. A 2008 study published by Australian researchers in the professional journal, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, reports that women who moderately or intensely worked out several times per week but also watched 43 to 86 minutes of televison per day might have trouble maintaining healthy weight compared to women exercisers who watched little or no TV.

What’s more, those TV-viewing women who worked out experienced higher blood pressure and a jump in the heart disease blood marker triglycerides versus the non-TV watchers who were exercisers.

David Dunstan, the lead researcher and an exercise scientist who specializes in diabetes and metabolism, speculates that such a daily “dose” of TV imposes prolonged sitting that may switch off  the release of enzymes that break down fat cells. That release of enzymes occurs when we exert ourselves during physical activity.

The new study is insightful for its suggestion that a TV habit might be so potently unhealthy that it negates the well-documented benefits of moderate to intense exercise. Television viewing has been cast as a villain in America’s obesity epidemic for more than a decade, but other researchers contend that a sedentary lifestyle processed foods (especially high fructose corn syrup and trans fats) are likely more at the core of weight problems.

More clever and, it says here, accurate hypotheses contend that TV and unhealthy eating habits work hand in hand. The act of watching TV is hard to do for many people without a snack or three. TV commercials focus frequently on foods and beverages, most of which are not something any of us would call healthy. The bandwidth given by the U.S. for advertisers on children’s programming alone is perhaps our greatest single health blunder as a society. For what it’s worth, other countries, especially European nations, have greatly restricted any junk food/drink commercials during kids’ shows.

The take-away message for any of us who still want to enjoy a favorite show, big game, a DVD movie or even catch up on the campaign trail is that a regular nightly/daily TV habit can disrupt our wellness express train. It is best to be moderate about your screen time—and always find time to get up and move around even when you are watching.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.