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How does a sedentary lifestyle affect life expectancy?
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Reducing the total amount of time a person spends sitting to less than three hours a day could extend their life by two years, according to British scientists whose findings were published in the British Medical Journal.
In addition, by reducing the time spent watching TV to two hours a day, you can "add" another 1.4 years to your life, conclude researchers who analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Expenditure Report in the United States for the period from June 2005 to October 2009.
The researchers also pooled data on sedentary behavior and mortality, including data from five studies covering 167,000 people. The database was further analyzed for age and gender.
By combining the two sets of data, the researchers established a conditional index of the level of risk in the population to calculate the number of deaths associated with a sedentary lifestyle. The death rate from causes associated with prolonged sitting was 27%, while the death rate from causes associated with excessive love of watching TV was 19%.
The study's authors plotted a life expectancy graph, showing that those who spent less than three hours a day sitting lived two years longer. The same was true for those who watched less than two hours of TV a day. Their life expectancy was 1.38 years longer.
Although the researchers point out that their work is evaluative in nature, and people who lead a sedentary lifestyle should not subtract two years from their lives, they still remind us that active people, as a rule, have better health.
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