What Makes Us Fat: Canadian Study

According to CBC News, Canadians who tend to spend several hours a day in front of their TV or PC are more prone to developing obesity. This conclusion was a result of a large-scale numerical study recently conducted by Statistics Canada.

The statisticians involved in the research have analyzed data that were derived from the Community Health Survey as of 2007. Once again, the results clearly showed that obesity and overweight typical for people of industrialized nations are directly linked to their sedentary lifestyles. The researchers based their conclusions on the documented interviews with almost 43,000 Canadian adults.

It was found that watching television, or spending time in front of a computer, is strongly linked to unhealthy weight. Interestingly, such sedentary activities as reading, playing card or other games, or spending leisurely time with friends were not associated with obesity.

According to the Canadian researchers, long hours of TV viewing are the largest cause of developing weight problems, especially if you tend to spend more than 21 hours a week in front of you TV screen. Those who view television programs about five hours a week, or less, are half as likely to be obese as those who watch TV for more than 21 hours a week.

Even when the results of the analysis were correlated with such additional factors as the level of education, income, age and residence, “screen time” still remained the major link to developing overweight.

Leading author of the study Margot Shields said that, although unhealthy dietary habits and a reduced level of physical activity were noted as strong contributors to weight gain, as well, these behaviours were taken into consideration while performing the statistical analysis. The relationship between “TV time” and weight gain still remained strong after all correlations.

The scientists suggested that, in order to reduce the high prevalence of overweight and related diseases currently observed in the Canadian population, health authorities should consider “screen time” as a peculiar factor strongly contributing to the unhealthy lifestyles and obesity.

It has been estimated that three out of every ten Canadians, or about 30 percent of the population, are frequent television watchers, meaning that they spend long hours daily in front of their TV screens. An additional 15 percent of Canadians tend to spend hours of their leisure, as well as office time, in front of PCs.

Margot Shields also noted that, although the levels of activity and dietary habits of the population had improved in the recent years, the rates of overweight did not go down. Now people tend to include into their diet more fruits, vegetables and whole grains; they also exercise more; the consumption of full-fat foods has been reduced; however, all these improvements do not seem to results in reducing the average weight of Canadian adults. Obesity-related diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer, are also on the rise.

Shields suggested that, in order to hamper a rapidly spreading epidemic of obesity in the nation, health authorities should also look at other possible triggers, such as screen and computer time, which strongly contribute to this unhealthy situation.

Kim Suffolk