14 DAY TRIAL // Just recently, health experts again joined forces to issue a warning on the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, with the meaning of the term broadened to refer to activities that imply lack of movement and that take up most of the time, even when regular physical exercise is included. In other words, they issued a warning on how bad for our health and weight watching TV is. Now, a new study comes to show that, of all age groups, it’s the elderly that are most exposed to these risks, as WebMD informs.
The two studies are not related directly, but that’s not to say that one can draw some conclusions from both. Researchers at the Stein Institute for Research on Aging and Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, looked at how over 3,000 Americans spent their leisure hours. They found that most of those over 65 spend a quarter of their time in front of the television, despite the misconception that it’s young people who do so. However, the elderly also enjoy the time they spend less than young people, which translates into decreased life satisfaction.
“The study looked at 3,092 Americans, aged 15 to 98, in survey data collected in 2006. Adults over 65 reported spending three times more of their waking hours watching TV than did younger adults. Older adults did not seem to experience the same ‘stress buffering’ effects that younger adults did from watching TV, and TV use among older adults – unlike time spent on other leisure activities, such as socializing or physical exercise – was related to lower life satisfaction,” WebMD informs.
“Data from other studies indicate that the average American household spends 4.5 hours watching TV per day and, in those over age 65, about 25% percent of their time is spent watching TV. Recent work suggests that sedentary activity, such as TV watching, is associated with negative changes in many aspects of health including cardiovascular, bone health and cellular function. Television use in particular has been linked with greater risk for obesity and Type2 diabetes, lower life satisfaction, less frequent engagement in social and physical interaction, and increased risk for dementia. The authors were surprised to find that older adults experienced TV watching as less enjoyable than younger people,” the same publication writes.
When they set out to carry out the study, the authors expected to find that the older one gets the bigger the satisfaction derived from watching more television, even if for the sole fact that there are fewer demands on one’s time as they advance in years. According to Dilip V, Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at UCSD School of Medicine, the elderly were even believed to use television watching as a means of regulating negative emotions – but it would seem that things are far from that.