Roni Caryn Rabin of the New York Times writes about "The Hazard of the Couch"
Many of us sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, and then go home and head for the couch to surf the Web or watch television, exchanging one seat and screen for another. Even if we try to squeeze in an hour at the gym, is it enough to counteract all that motionless sitting?
A mounting body of evidence suggests not.
The latest findings, published this week in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicate that the amount of leisure time spent sitting in front of a screen can have such an overwhelming, seemingly irreparable impact on one’s health that physical activity doesn’t produce much benefit.
Rabin cites two types of studies, one type showing that people who spend more time on the couch watching TV have a higher risk of health problems like heart disease and have a higher chance of dying, and another type that shows that in animal studies some biochemical changes can explain why:
