And the findings were sobering: Every single hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 21.8 minutes.

By comparison, smoking a single cigarette reduces life expectancy by about 11 minutes, the authors said.

So for every 60 minutes I spend watching TV, I lose 80 minutes of life?

That's a 33% tax on watching things. Fascinating.

Does it still apply for those healthy people that already did their exercise for the day?

It appears, Dr. Veerman says, that “a person who does a lot of exercise but watches six hours of TV” every night “might have a similar mortality risk as someone who does not exercise and watches no TV.

In other words, yes, even in active people sitting is considered harmful.

Hence the rise of sit-stand desks.

Yes, this is exactly what we were discussing the other day, Adam... Jared and Joyce--I'm going to fact check Dr. Veerman's thoughts on this. I've written on this before and found that the docs simply wanted you to be active--if you already did your exercise, you are not living a sedentary lifestyle. This risk is for those living a sedentary lifestyle only. In other words, if you eat all the organic tofu in the world, avoid beer and everything bad--heck, you don't even swear, BUT you still fail to exercise, you command significant health risks. The army is particularly upset with this.

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/military-leaders-were-still-too-fat-to-fight/

Here's the abstract from the American Journal of Epidemiology:

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/172/4/419.abstract

This is a similar study done in India. I haven't worked with it before, just found it now:

http://www.biomedscidirect.com/journalfiles/IJBMRF2011253/effect_of_sedentary_life_style_on_anthropometric_and_cardiovascular_parameters.pdf

I can't buy that a nighttime armchair quarterback who exercises regularly has risks from the continuous sitting--or even that someone working at a computer for a day job would kick the bucket the same as a smoker by virtue of that shift of sitting if proper exercise has been had... I'm willing to be proven wrong on this.

Sit-stand desks just make me realize I should be moving over to the coffee pot. Can they be more productive?

There are simple exercises you can do while sitting at your desk: Squeeze a Pilates ring between your knees, use bands to work your upper body. Then take a walk or run at lunch. It doesn't take much to keep from being sedentary.

Who ARE these people? I can only dream of watching 4 - 6 hours of television a day in reclining comfort. Even when I get to watch TV at home on the weekends, I'm cooking and cleaning and working out almost the entire time.

Insomniacs watch television when they should be sleeping.

Other than that, I think you answered your own question.

Most Americans do not cook, clean minimally, and rarely work out.

or completely binge on a show!

Television is like a drug!

It is. I don't watch much, but then I find I'm sitting in front of the TV w the family and a laptop working and pretending to be social so I can finish up work. Henceforth, work is a drug, too... I just feel superior because I think I'm accomplishing something important rather than watching the same Discovery or History channel show again. Maybe I'm not the one doing the right thing:)