If you spend too much time watching TV, browsing the Internet, or riding in your car rather than walking, you just might be on the way to developing obesity or type 2 diabetes.
A new study has shown that an increasing dependence of households on television, computers, and cars, both for entertainment and convenience, is contributing to the rise in cases of obesity and type 2 diabetes, because of the physical inactivity that stems from the long hours of daily use of these gadgets and equipment i.e. sedentary lifestyle.
Following a survey conducted on about 153,996 individuals in almost 110,000 different households located in different countries and across all income levels and economic conditions, the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study has revealed that in all the countries studied, ownership of even one household device statistically increased the odds of obesity in the household by 43 percent and diabetes by 38 percent. Ownership of a second device increased the odds further by 58 percent for obesity and 43 percent for diabetes, but ownership of a third device did not increase likelihood for either of the two medical conditions.
The report, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and headed by Scott A Lear of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, studied 17 different countries. The high-income countries studied were Canada, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates. Upper-middle income countries studied were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa, and Turkey. China, Columbia, and Iran comprised the lower-middle-income set of countries studied, while Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe were the low-income countries that were included in the study.
Of the nearly 110,000 households, 78 percent had at least one television, 34 percent owned a computer, and 32 percent owned a car.
The report showed that the effect of ownership of these devices on the likelihood of a household developing obesity and type 2 diabetes was most pronounced in households in low-income countries. In low-income countries, the households that owned a television, a car, and a computer, the risk of obesity was 14.5 percent, compared with the 3.4 percent risk in households that owned none of the three.
The risk of developing diabetes is also much higher for low-income households that owned all three, at 11.7 percent, compared with only 4.7 percent in households that owned none of the three.
All in all, in low-income countries, households that owned all three were 31 percent less physically active and did 21 percent more sitting compared with those households that owned none of the three.
The researchers have explained that it is not ownership of the televisions, computers and cars that directly lead to obesity and diabetes but the physical inactivity and sedentary lifestyle that ownership of and dependence on these gadgets eventually lead to. However, the correlation between ownership of these gadgets and the risk of developing obesity and diabetes was more pronounced in households in low-income countries.
"With increasing ownership of household devices in developing countries, societal interventions are needed to mitigate their effects on poor health," the researchers wrote.
So try getting off the couch or car seat every once in a while, take a long walk, and enjoy moments away from the online world. Together with a healthy diet, it could definitely take you further away from the risk of developing obesity or diabetes.
