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A new study finds that too much television hurts your mental health

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Look at this Life Site News post.

Excerpt:

A new study has found that watching more than 4 hours of TV a day has an adverse effect on mental well-being.

The study was conducted by Mark Hamer, PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, and research associates Emmanuel Stamatakis, PhD, and Gita D. Mishra, PhD. It analyzed the association of leisure-time sedentary behavior in adults, measured by television and screen-based entertainment (TVSE) time, and mental health.

The researchers looked at mental health survey data of 3920 men and women between the ages of 35 and 65 years, from the 2003 Scottish Health Survey. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and the mental health component of the 12-Item Short-Form Survey Instrument (MCS-12) were administered to obtain information on current mental health. Self-reported TVSE time, physical activity, and general health were also measured.

Approximately a quarter of the participants in the study engaged in at least four hours a day of watching screen-based entertainment.

After adjustment for age, gender, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, fruit and vegetable intake, the researchers found that participants with the highest TVSE level had the highest instances of mental health problems compared with participants in the group with the lowest TVSE level of less than 2 hours per day.

The report concludes that, while sedentary behavior is known to be an independent risk factor for physical health, mental well-being also deteriorates with more time spent in front of the TV.

I don’t watch TV, but I really need to get more exercise! This study makes me feel really guilty.

27 thoughts on “A new study finds that too much television hurts your mental health”

  1. Wow! People actually watch 4+ hours of TV a day? I was thinking 2+ hours a day was bad enough. It makes sense that if you spend that much time in front of a TV (computer screen) your mental health will shrink.

    This is off-topic, but I have to ask, what do you think of the O’Donnell upset in Delaware?

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    1. I heard some bad things about her personal life with respect to a previous employer. I was going to blog in support of her before I read those things, because I love to feature Republican women. But as it stands, I am glad that she won because Castle was the second worst RINO in the house, and when these guys go down, it sends a message to the rest. I don’t think I like her as a candidate to be excited about her. She’s very pretty but I can’t forgive her for those things that she did.

      Here’s the Weekly Standard article I read:
      http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/citing-mental-anguish-christine-odonnell-sought-69-million-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-again

      They are really conservative.

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      1. “You know, everyone is allowed to have financial difficulties,” Gaffney continued. “Everyone is allowed to take time to go to college. But misrepresenting yourself, lying about it, that’s what I have a problem with. I don’t understand why she has to lie about stuff she doesn’t have to lie about.”

        He expressed my very thoughts about her “shady” history. You know, I read her platform on wikipedia and I was really impressed, but when I read about these things she has lied about (and didn’t have to lie about), I wonder about her mental stability (I’m not trying to be harsh by saying that I wonder about her mental stability).

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        1. Yes, I agree. I was going to feature her because she’s a single conservative woman who is pretty good on the stated issues. But seriously, can no one tell the difference between Michele Bachmann and someone like this? One of them has the knowledge and the experience, especially the knowledge of being a mom and a homeschooling parent. The other is… crazy.

          And I cannot stand Mike Castle so I am glad he lost.

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          1. Yeah, Mike Castle had more in common with John Kerry than with Ronald Reagen.

            I really like Bachmann too. She’s like a female Bill Craig, much like Ann Coulter is a female version of Dinesh D’Souza (though she might be more harsh than he is).

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          2. Anyway, I blogrolled you to help your page rank. Now you have to write more though.

            Yeah the thing about O’Donnell is that once you look at her history, she’s like one of these horrible victimized feminists that is always blaming men and scaring them with craziness. I don’t want her to represent me. I want someone who likes men and wants to help them and love them.

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          3. Thanks for blogrolling my page. I post more than I used to, would like to post more, but time gets away from me. I think I’m going to link my blog with my page on Facebook called, “Ask These Two Guys.”

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          5. Uggh. Ann Coulter. We have a five foot rattlesnake on our property in upstate New York that we have named after her. She’s a mean girl and she gets away with it because she’s “attractive.” She’s like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell. Neither would have gotten far if they hadn’t looked good to conservative men. Think about it. How many average women are getting repub attention, these days? Wintery, every time you talk about Michele Bachmann, you always make reference to her appearance. Suppose we all evaluate the men on that basis?

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          6. That is SO unfair. I do not always make reference to her Highness Faerie Queene’s lovely appearance! And especially not her charming, soothing voice and passionate gesturing!

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          9. I must say, it doesn’t worry me. I’m just happy that Wintery posts things on Paul Ryan and Bobby Jindal… ;-) [mischievous grin]

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          10. That’s right, Mary!

            And don’t forget about Marco Rubio – a handsome and dashing Latin statesman.I think he is the best because he seems to convey a little less confidence than Jindal and Ryan, which to me is better for a woman because there is something for her to do – encourage him. But they are all very passionate, informed and handsome. And all three of them have records of extreme competence in passing or designing high-quality specific legislation on topics that marriage-minded women care about.

            In my mind, women really say a lot when they say what kind of man they like. I think women need to understand that some men advocate policies that are love and marriage friendly, and some are just selfish womenizers. The goal is life-long married love, so women should choose men who defend policies that support and enable that goal. That takes more thinking than just looking at their appearance though. You have to connect the goals with specific policies to know what a good man sounds like.

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          11. Gosh, all these lovely sensible gentlemen in politics!McS, I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s nothing quite so gorgeous as a man with fire in his eyes and a purpose in his stride as he works to protect women and children.And if he happens to be handsome into the bargain, who are we to complain? ;-)

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          12. Honestly, I don’t find Ann Coulter all that attractive, she’s not ugly, but her writing/rhetoric is phenomenal. I became interested with her when I read an article by her. I saw her after I read her article. I’m just saying that her writing interested me first.

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          13. I went totally crazy over Ann from her writings before I ever saw what she looked like. But at that time I had no idea that women could be conservative or that they could be passionate about politics and economics. I agree that she isn’t that attractive – men love her because she is musters a lot of facts in her arguments and has thought everything through. She has a good law degree which helps her to research and write well.

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          14. Since when it is considered good research or writing to say things about people that are simply personally mean? A good writer doesn’t have to resort to that.

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          15. When I was in my early 20s, for some reason I thought she was really funny. Now I like reading Jennifer Roback Morse.

            I think that what it is that attracts me to women like Ann is the idea that a woman could actually understand what a man is facing, and to honor him for fulfilling those manly roles. When you are a good man, the second best thing in the world is to have a woman attack your enemies for you and stick up for you in public. The best is if she can defend the reputation of God against people who doubt his existence and character. That’s the hardest one of all, because women don’t usually study God’s existence and character using facts and arguments, so that they are able to defend them in reasonable ways in public. Usually, they just say – “this is my opinion” or “this is my faith tradition” and they don’t say that they are right because they don’t KNOW if they are right because they haven’t studied anything. Their opinions are their opinions, and their opinions are not TRUE, they just work to make them feel happy. To really defend these things in public takes a lot of work – if you want to be bold and convincing and not just leave as a question of personal preferences – believe whatever makes you feel happy.

            Most women have a crazy unBiblical idea that God wants them to be happy, and so that means that God wants them to be liked. And that means that they don’t try to prove the existence of God, they don’t talk about sin or Hell, they don’t believe in the Devil, and they don’t take strong stands on morality – like on abortion or traditional marriage. They don’t want to get into confrontations where they have to side one way or another, or make non-Christians feel bad. So they dump God and then think that God likes them for dumping him. They project their goal of wanting to be liked by everyone onto God. But God doesn’t want us to lie about him in order to be liked by everyone. We’re his ambassadors – he expects us to tell the truth about him to other people and to suffer the consequences. God doesn’t like it when we twist his personality and his goals so that they match our goal of being happy. If that were his goal then Jesus would never have had to suffer and die for remaining obedient.

            It is incredibly attractive to me when a woman doesn’t try to be all things to all people – where she is willing to make enemies with those who attack her relationship with God, her relationship with men, and her relationship with children. That’s why Michele Bachmann is #1. The way she defends taxpaying men, evangelical Christianity, the unborn and traditional marriage just rings my bell. Every man who looks at her who has a prior commitment to defend Jesus, to love his wife and to raise children simply cannot resist her. Michele knows what she believes and she is willing to fight for it. She loves apologetics, and she understands how to defend her faith in public. She is not a coward. She is not just giving her opinions. She doesn’t care about being popular. She’s passionate and informed and persuasive.

            Thanks for being nice today, by the way. I’m SOOOOOO happy today. I’m feeling much better lately.

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  4. OFF TOPIC COMMENT:

    Hi,

    I love reading the posts & comments here, but is there anyway to adjust the page setup ? When someone replies to a reply to a reply to a reply… it all get pushed into the center
    and
    I
    end
    up
    having
    to
    read
    sentences
    and
    paragraphs
    in
    this
    horrible
    format.

    When reading the comments is there any way to get rid of the right side (non-politically speaking, of course) of the page ?

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      1. Was that question for me or for everyone ? For me, reducing from 10 to 5 made a nice difference for readability. And I usually prefer reading all comments on one page, but that’s not a big deal for ease of reading.

        Thanks ! :-)

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  5. Heh! I just noticed that all the handsome conservative politicians you’ve mentioned are Catholics.

    Speaking of which, what do you think about Sean Duffy?

    I know this isn’t exactly relevant but I just had to say it! :)

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