Television viewing and obesity in adult females

Lifestyle plays a key role in the development and prevention of a host of chronic diseases. Until recently, few have recognized television viewing as a significant lifestyle factor. Yet, next to sleep and work, watching TV consumes more time than any other activity in America. Adolescents spend more time watching TV each year than they spend in school, and the typical adult averages nearly four hours of TV viewing per day. Research has determined that frequent television viewing may function as a risk factor in a number of disorders. Health problems may result from many hours of daily TV watching due to the deceptive and inaccurate health-related messages which are regularly transmitted to viewers. However, television's principal problem is probably more related to the physical passivity which accompanies TV viewing rather than the misleading micro-lessons it teaches. TV has profoundly changed the use of leisure time in America. While people watch TV, physical activity tends to be minimal and snacking is prevalent. Conditions for hypokinetic ailments such as obesity and poor fitness dominate. In 1986, Tucker studied the connection between television viewing and multiple measures of physical fitness in adolescent males. Findings showed that high levels of TV watching were strongly associated with low scores on tests of fitness, pullups, situps, sidestep, six-minute run, and pushups). Similarly, Dietz and Gortmaker found that as TV viewing increased, obesity increased systematically in several thousand children aged 6-11 and 12-17. In 1989, Tucker and Friedman showed that time spent watching TV was directly related to obesity levels in adult males. Men who watched more than three hours of TV per day had more than twice the prevalence of obesity compared to those who watched less than one hour per day. To date, the association between TV viewing and obesity in adult females has not been studied; hence, the present investigation was conducted. A secondary purpose was to ascertain the extent to which age, cigarette smoking, hours worked per week, and weekly exercise duration mediate the relation between TV viewing and obesity in women.