想要长寿，关了电视吧

原作者：
来源时代周刊：想更长命，关了电视吧
译者MISS宅

Sitting in front of the television may be a relaxing way to pass an evening, but spending too much time in front of the tube may take years off your life.

坐在电视前看电视不失为一种轻松过夜的方式，但在电视前呆的时间长了可是会折寿的。

That's what Australian researchers found when they generated life-expectancy tables for people based on mortality information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics as well as participants' survey responses about how much TV they had watched in the past week.

这就是澳大利亚的研究人员得出的结论。他们将澳大利亚统计局提供的死亡率信息与受访者提供的在过去几周看多长时间电视的数据综合，并以之为基础，设计出一份预期寿命表。

The TV-viewing data from more than 11,000 participants older than 25 years showed that Australian adults watched an estimated 9.8 billion hours of television in 2008. People who watched an average six hours of TV a day lived an average 4.8 years fewer than those who didn't watch any television, the study found.

来自11,000位25岁以上的受访者的看电视数据显示，在2008年，澳大利亚成人的看电视时间达到了98亿小时。研究表明，每天平均看6小时电视的人相较于不看电视的人而言，平均少活4.8年。

Even more humbling: every hour of TV that participants watched after age 25 was associated with a 22-minute reduction in their life expectancy.

甚至更惭愧的是：对于年龄大于25岁的人而言，他们每多看一个小时的电视，就会折寿22分钟。

(MORE: Too Much TV Linked with Disease and Early Death)

（更多发现：过度看电视与疾病与早逝有关）

The findings suggest that watching too much TV is as detrimental to longevity as smoking and lack of exercise. Previous research has shown that smoking is associated with a four-year reduction in life expectancy after the age of 50. That works out to an average 11 minutes of life lost for every cigarette smoked — the equivalent to 30 minutes of TV time, according to the current study.

研究指出过度看电视与吸烟、缺少锻炼一样，对长寿有害。之前的研究也显示吸烟与50岁之后减少4年人均寿命有关。根据这一结果折算，每吸一支烟，平均折寿11分钟——根据最近的研究，这相当于看电视30分钟。

The study notes also that people who report low levels of physical activity lose nearly 1.5 years in life expectancy compared with those who exercise a moderate amount, an effect similar to that of watching just over two hours of television a day.

研究亦指出疏于锻炼的人与适度锻炼的人相较，人均寿命会短将近1.5年。这与每天看电视2小时以上对人产生的影响相似。

"The strong correlation is a bit of a surprise," said lead author Lennert Veerman of the University of Queensland in an e-mail response to questions about his research, which was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. "It suggests that going from inactive to slightly active is as important as exercise."

“看电视与人均寿命之间强烈的联系令人相当惊讶，”来自昆士兰大学的主要作者Lennert Veerman在一封答复关于他的研究的电子邮件中说道。这篇文章发表在英国运动医学期刊上。“研究指出，从不运动变成适量运动与锻炼一样重要。”

It's no mystery that sitting in front of the tube isn't exactly a healthy pursuit. The more TV you watch, the less physically active you are. And the less exercise you get, the more likely you are to develop diseases such as diabetes or heart problems.

不难理解，看电视确实不是一个健康的追求。你电视看得越多，运动就做的越少。你的运动做得少，罹患糖尿病、心脏病一类疾病的概率就会增大。

But while previous studies have hinted at the potentially deadly impact of too much TV watching — in June, a Harvard study found that for every two hours of TV watched, people's risk of dying from any cause increased 13% over a seven-year period — the new analysis was the first to translate the effect of TV viewing to life expectancy at birth.

但是之前的研究显示了过度看电视的潜在致命影响——在六月，一个哈佛大学的研究显示每多看两个小时的电视，人们在七年后因各种原因致死的风险就会增大13%——这个研究开创了将看电视的影响折算成人均寿命的先河。

Were it not for TV, researchers estimated that life expectancy for men would be 1.8 years longer and for women, 1.5 years longer.

如果不是过度看电视，研究人员估计男性的预期寿命将会延长1.8岁，女性预期寿命将会延长1.5岁。

(MORE: Even a Little Bit of Exercise Goes a Long Way)

（更多发现：少量运动亦大有裨益）

Veerman acknowledges that it may not just be the sedentary nature of watching TV that lowers life expectancy but also the poor diet that onscreen junk-food advertising can promote. Still, the association between excess TV viewing and lower life expectancy persisted, even after adjusting for diet, Veerman says.

Veerman指出，折寿的原因不仅仅在于久坐，亦在于电视里垃圾食品的广告促使了人们不健康的饮食。并且，甚至在调整饮食之后，过量看电视与降低人均寿命之间的联系仍旧存在。Veerman 说道。

He says it might make sense for doctors to start asking their patients about how much time they spend in front of the TV and to treat TV time as they would other risk factors for poor health, such as lack of exercise and an unhealthy diet.

他说这可能会使得医生们开始询问患者看电视的时间，并且让他们把看电视的时间当作导致健康变差的风险因素，例如缺少锻炼，不健康的饮食。

Also, Veerman notes, the dangers of TV viewing can easily be neutralized by simply turning off the TV and getting off the couch. "Exercise is good," he says, "but even light physical activity also improves health."

同时，Veerman也指出，过度看电视的威胁也能通过关掉电视或离开沙发这些简单的措施抵消掉。“锻炼是很有益处的”，他说道，“而且即使是轻度的体育锻炼也能促进身体健康。”

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