Time spent watching television does not replace physical activity for Finnish men – unlike for Finnish women

Previous studies have found prolonged television time to be more harmful to health than other domains of sedentariness. A recent longitudinal study with a ten-year follow-up examined how the television viewing time of Finnish adults was associated with their physical activity level during leisure-time.

The results showed that maintaining a high level of leisure-time physical activity was accompanied by less television viewing time for women. High television time (3 hours or more per day) especially was more prevalent among low-active women than it was among highly active women.

Surprisingly, highly active men tended to watch more television (approximately 2 hours per day) than did their low-active peers, who tended to watch television one hour or less a day. Highly active men seemed to have time for physical activity as well as television viewing.