Getting off the couch ensures healthy aging: study finds benefit

It’s tempting to watch TV, but another study shows that when it comes to healthy aging, the less time on the couch the better.

The study looked at 20 years of data on more than 45,000 people who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study. All were at least 50 years old in 1992 and free of chronic diseases when they participated in the study.

Researchers tracked lifestyle habits, such as time spent at work, at home and watching television, as well as hours spent standing or walking at home or at work. All that data was compared with information about how healthily (or not) they had aged over time.

What defined ‘healthy aging’? According to the team at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, this meant living to age 70 with no major chronic diseases, no memory impairment, and generally good physical and mental health.

One activity – watching TV while sitting – seemed particularly unhealthy, the researchers found.

“Replacing television time with light physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity, or sleep [in participants with inadequate sleep] were associated with better chances of healthy aging,” wrote a team led by Dr. Molin Wang, associate professor of medicine at Harvard’s department of epidemiology.

More specifically, every hour a day in which sedentary TV viewing was replaced by even “light” physical activity at home (e.g., routine housework) increased a person’s chance of living to 70 or older at a healthy age by 8%.

If that hour of TV watching was replaced with “moderately vigorous” physical activity (for example, a workout), the chance of healthy aging increased by 28%, the study found.

Even people who got less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night benefited from healthy aging if they got an extra hour of sleep every day instead of watching an hour of TV from the couch.

The findings were published June 11 in the news JAMA network opened.

Speak with CNNDr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, said watching TV appears to be a particularly unhealthy activity — and not just because you’re not exercising.

“When people sit in front of the TV, it usually involves all these other comorbid activities like eating junk food, TV dinners, not being able to connect with others, and it can even interrupt sleep,” Freeman noted. He was not involved in the new investigation.

And exercise – in any way, for any length of time – can change all that. It’s “a really incredible way to reduce cardiovascular risk and blood pressure,” Freeman said.

“My very strong suggestion is that at work you should consider getting a standing desk if you can, or even a treadmill if you are able and if you have the space,” Freeman said. “If you’re sitting for more than 30 minutes at a time, I think that’s probably too long, and you really want to try to get a little exercise.”

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