A new study has found that the less time you spend sitting on the couch, the better for healthy aging.
The research team studied 20 years of data for more than 45,000 people. All of them were at least 50 years old in 1992, and did not suffer from chronic diseases when they participated in the study.
The researchers tracked participants' lifestyle habits, such as sitting time at work and home and watching television, as well as hours spent at home or working while standing or walking around the house.
The Harvard T.H. Chan Public Health team explained that healthy aging includes living up to 70 years without chronic diseases, with no memory impairment, and enjoying good physical and mental health in general.
The researchers found that one activity, watching TV while sitting, appeared to be particularly unhealthy.
“Replacing TV time with light physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity, or sleep was associated with better odds of healthy aging,” wrote a team led by Molin Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard University.
The study found that the odds of healthy aging rose by 28% if an hour of watching TV was replaced with “moderately vigorous” physical activity.
Dr. Andrew Freeman, who was not involved in the new study, said: “When people sit in front of the TV, it leads to eating fast food, eating dinner in front of the TV, and failing to connect with others.”
The results were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
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