TV Time and Calories

Reducing TV time may spur calorie burn.

HealthDay (12/14, Gardner) reported that researchers have found a correlation between "turning off the TV" and "lifestyle habits," according to the paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Indeed, the fact that "less time watching TV means more calories burned" is "hardly surprising," but investigators say it "may provide clinicians with a new tool to stem the tide of overweight and obesity." In fact, "participants burned 120 more calories a day and spent about 50 percent less time plunked in front of the TV than they had before starting the study" when their viewing habits went unchecked.
There was, however, "no significant difference between the intervention and control groups in energy intake, energy balance, or body mass index," MedPage Today (12/14, Walsh) noted. Still, previous studies have shown that "TV couch potatoes expend even less energy than people engaged in other sedentary behaviors such as reading, writing, or talking on the telephone, and US adults currently average five hours of TV a day."

Citation: AMA