A new study has found that watching excessive television as a young adult can result in greater likelihood of obesity in the future.
Lead author Anthony Fabio of the University of Pittsburgh said that they were quite surprised to find that television viewing was associated with subsequent obesity for young adults, but not for the middle-aged, adding that this suggested that middle-aged adults might differ from young adults in how they responded to the influence of TV viewing.
In the study, Fabio and his colleagues analysed data from 3,269 adults who participated in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study.
The participants reported their television viewing habits and had their waist circumference measured and their body mass index calculated every five years.
The more time participants spent watching television when they were approximately 30 years old, the more likely they were to be obese five years later, compared to their peers who spent less time in front of the television.
The analysis found that 23 percent of the men and 20.6 percent of the women participating in the study watched four or more hours of television daily.
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The study also found that participants were more likely to eat healthier food as they aged.
Fabio said that television viewing and obesity were both highly prevalent in many populations around the world, and added that this meant that even small reductions in television viewing could lead to vast public health improvements.
He concluded that their study indicated that the biggest bang for the buck would be in targeting young adults for interventions to reduce television viewing.
The study is published in the Journal SAGE Open.