Research
Energy balance
High levels of sedentary behavior, specifically television viewing, are independently associated with an increased risk of becoming overweight, regardless of the amount of nonsedentary physical activity performed.
Limit your television viewing time. Even if you exercise, watching TV for more than 21 hours a week significantly increases your risk of gaining weight. Try to keep TV viewing to under 1 hour per week for optimal weight maintenance.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Men watching 21 or more hours of TV/VCR per week in 1988 were over 40% more likely to become overweight by 1990 than were men viewing 1 hour or less per week (RR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.04, 2.16 for those viewing 21-40 hours; P for trend <.01).
Why this rating
Prospective cohort design with large sample size, adjusting for activity levels.
Source
Activity level and risk of overweight in male health professionals.
Pamela Ching et al. · American Journal of Public Health · 1996
DOI 10.2105/ajph.86.1.25
cohort · n=22076Cited 185×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Higher levels of nonsedentary physical activity (measured in MET-hours per week) are inversely associated with the risk of becoming overweight in adult men, with even moderate activity providing significant protection.Good
- Increasing nonsedentary activity by 10 MET-hours per week predicts a small but significant decrease in BMI (approx 0.03 units), whereas increasing TV viewing by 10 hours per week predicts a small but significant increase in BMI (approx 0.05 units).Good
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