No, we are not talking about the colorful, roly poly children’s television characters.

We’re talking about television watching and overweight Americans.  There is a growing mountain of research that has found that the more time children and adults spend watching television, the greater the likelihood they will be overweight or obese. 

One study dug a little deeper into this important question and found that nearly 60% of adults watched more than two hours of television per day.  These adults had a much higher body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fatness based on height and weight, than adults who watched less than one hour of TV per day.  Older adults and those with lower educational and income levels were much more likely to watch two or more hours a day of television.  African Americans were more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to watch at least two hours of TV a day.

A reason why regular television watching may be so strongly associated with obesity risk is because the time people are sitting on the couch watching reality shows, sports, sit coms, or crime dramas is time they could be burning a lot more calories doing physical activities.  But research has also demonstrated that people who watch more than two hours of TV also eat more calories than people who watch less television.  And the extra calories come primarily as regular soft drinks and calorie-dense snack foods, likely consumed while sitting in front of the tube.

This is not good news, especially in light of the plethora of television options that are now available to us.  Hundreds of channels, record and watch it later DVRs, and even streaming video on our computers make it really, really easy to watch television – and be sedentary – any time we want.

Possible solutions?  How about:

• Setting up an exercise machine in your TV room.  Promise yourself only to watch while you are moving.
• Capturing the energy you produce while exercising to power your television.  Check out this websit:  http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html
• Making it a rule in your house that there is no snacking while watching television.

What ideas do you have for reducing sedentary TV time or increasing energy expenditure while watching TV?  Share them in the space provided below.