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Ever wondered just how those lazy hours in front of the tube are really affecting your health? According to a new Australian study, you could be watching your life away... literally.
In a paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers at the University of Queensland looked at the results of a survey of 11,247 Australians taken in 1999-2000, which asked about time spent watching television, as well as mortality figures for the country.
They compared life expectancy rates for adults who watch TV to those who did not, and worked out that every hour spent glued to the screen shortened life by 21.8 minutes.
According to the researchers, those in the top 1 per cent of the population who watch six hours of television a day "can expect to live 4.8 years less than a person who does not watch TV."
Dr Lennert Veerman, one of the report's authors, told the Guardian that long hours spent watching television are "in the same ballpark as smoking and obesity." But he also noted that "while smoking rates are declining, watching TV is not, which has implications at a population level."
