Research
Adherence
Television viewing time has a stronger association with mortality and type 2 diabetes risk than total sedentary time, with specific thresholds identified for increased risk.
Watching TV is particularly risky for your health. Try to limit TV time to under 3.5 hours a day, as this specific activity carries a higher risk of mortality and diabetes than other forms of sitting.
StrongQualifiesHIGH confidence
Stronger PA-adjusted associations were found for TV viewing (h/day); non-linear for all-cause mortality (1.03 (1.01–1.04) ≤ 3.5 h/day; 1.06 (1.05–1.08) > 3.5 h/day) and for CVD mortality (1.02 (0.99–1.04) ≤ 4 h/day; 1.08 (1.05–1.12) > 4 h/day).
Why this rating
Based on the same high-quality meta-analysis.
Source
Sedentary behaviour and risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality, and incident type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and dose response meta-analysis
Richard Patterson et al. · European Journal of Epidemiology · 2018
DOI 10.1007/s10654-018-0380-1
Meta-analysis · 34 studiesCited 1,415×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- High levels of sedentary behavior (total sitting or TV viewing) are independently associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, and incident type 2 diabetes, even after adjusting for physical activity levels.Strong
- There is no significant association between sedentary behavior and cancer mortality.Good
Related findings · Adherence
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