Can Watching a Lot of TV Take Years Off Your Life? a New Study Says

by Lexi Petronis

Sigh, these kind of preliminary research findings are exactly what TV addicts don't want to hear.

A new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association has found that three or more hours of tube time per day might increase your risk of premature death.

And it may be TV specifically! The researchers studied 13,284 healthy Spanish university grads and assessed their risk of dying early from three sedentary activities: TV time, logging on to the computer, and driving. Surprisingly, there seemed to be no associations with premature death and computer use or driving--but the risk was two times higher for the subjects who watched TV for three more hours in a row.

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Why? Well, research has found that sitting for hours on end isn't good for your physical (or mental) health--and we all know how captivating TV can be (Netflix binge-watching, anyone?). But research is still in the early stages.

Still, due to working life and studying for school all that fun stuff, there are definitely days where all we end up on our butts more than we probably should. But you can still torch some calories while on your derriere--and did you know that standing for three hours every day can add up to burning an extra 50 calories an hour? (That's like running 10 marathons in a year!)

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