Attention TV watchers and bloggers: Get up and move around

Sometimes when I’m intent on blogging, I sit an hour or two or more without getting up. That’s not good for your health.

On the National Public Radio program Science Friday today, David Dunstan described research which showed that people who watch television for four or more hours a day have an 80 percent greater chance of dying from cardio vascular disease and a 46 percent greater chance of dying from any illness.

Dunstan is head of physical activity at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

It’s the sitting that’s the problem, he said on the program "Watching TV Could Shorten Your Life." People go from sitting at work to sitting in the car to sitting in front of the TV.

That’s why this research is important to bloggers. Sitting for hours before a computer screen is probably just as harmful, Dunstan said.

Health effects also were seen in people who exercised regularly but had high levels of TV viewing.

The researchers followed more than 8,000 Australian adults for six years. Their findings were published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.

Dunstan and his colleagues are conducting further research on how often it’s important to contract the body’s muscles. Moving around for two minutes every 20 minutes is one idea.