A new study performed by Australian researchers has finished with some shocking results, concluding that, even with exercise, extended TV watching leads to a higher risk of death.
The researchers tracked 8800 people for six years, and found that those who watched TV for over 4 hours per day had a 46 percent better chance of dying of any cause, and an extremely high 80 percent more likely chance of dying of cardiovascular disease, over those that spent less than two hours a day.
“It’s not the sweaty type of exercise we’re losing,” says David Dunstan, a researcher at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne. “It’s the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles that [doesn't happen] when we’re plunked on a couch in front of a television.” On average, most of the participants had about 30 minutes of exercise per day.
The results seem to follow the latest trend of studies which has shown that periods of inactivity can lead to slower processing of fats and other chemicals in the body.
The American Heart Association journal says Americans average 5 hours of TV a day.
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The Performing Right Society (PRS) in the UK is literally looking and listening, anywhere and everywhere it can to find fresh new sources of license fees for “public performance” of music. It’s no secret that typical business premises like grocery stores, restaurants, clothing outlets and everything else must pay a yearly fee if they have the radio playing for their staff and customers.
Fresh from hunting down new businesses in towns and cities, the PRS is expanding to anywhere it can that technically is required to get a license. Rosemary Greenway is a perfect example. For over 20 years, she has played classical music for the animals at her stables because she believes it helps to keep them calm.
One day she received a telephone call from the Performing Right Society informing her that she must pay a £99 annual fee, as playing Classic FM at the stables where there are more than two on staff apparently constitutes a “performance”, regardless of the fact that the staff don’t really care for, or listen to the music at all.
Rosemary claims from observation that the music soothes the animals, making for better working conditions for all. The stables are also located next to the RAF Lyneham air base, so the music helps to drown out the excess noise. “You would have thought that playing music to your own horses was allowable but apparently not,” she said. “Especially on windy days I try to play it - it gives them a nice quiet atmosphere, you can only exercise one horse at a time so it helps the others to stay calm.”
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Electronic Arts, seeing the huge popularity of Nintendo’s Wii Fit , has announced they will be releasing their own fitness game, EA Sports Active next March for the Wii console.
The game will have tennis, boxing, soccer and other sports which gamers can play using wireless controllers attached to their arms and legs.
The game will retail for $60 USD and will include a book on healthy eating.
Electronista says Sports Active “centers around a pair of leg straps that hold both the Wii remote and nunchuk in place as well as a single resistance band for the upper body. The set lets Nintendo’s own controllers properly track exercise across the whole body and also introduce enough physical stress to provide strength-based exercise.”
