Study Shows TV Makes Kids Fat, Computers Don't 276
Xemu writes "Computers don't make children fat, but watching TV for the same length of time does. This is shown by a recent Swedish study of all school children in Lund's county conducted by RN Pernilla Garmy. The results were clear: The child's obesity was directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room, but placing a computer in the room had no effect at all. One theory is that it's common to have a snack in front of the TV, while a computer requires a more active user, for example when chatting or playing games."
I knew it (Score:5, Funny)
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And low calorie.
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Computers are awesome.
*And* they make you use your brain (a bit, or a lot, depending on what you do), the most voracious organ of the whole body.
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is likely correct about the snacks and food. Also, no offense intended to anyone, but I've noticed that people who just zone out to television as compared to active computer users/gamers tend to be a bit...dumber.
Yes yes, I know, a generalization...but in my experience, it's the truth.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I've noticed the same thing, and I think it's because of the interaction. A television simply feeds you information, and you accept it. That makes you quite adept at just accepting information. In contract, a computer, even used for only playing games, requires some critical thought to decide what to do next.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Brain activity does burn some calories. Perhaps not much, but it's still doing it. And TV watching does require less thinking.
A quick googling offered this [google.com] as a starting point.
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Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
A television simply feeds you information, and you accept it.
So do books, but books don't make you fat.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Funny)
So do books, but books don't make you fat.
Are you kidding? Those things are nothing but carbs. Well and fiber, so at least you'll be a regular fat-ass.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
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Comparison: Television - limited choices, giving you a choice between them. Internet - functionally unlimited (from a human's perspective) choices, you decide where to go to.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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I think he's trying to say that since the computer is an open platform for many different applications, ie. games, web chat, web browsing, media editing, it requires more thought on what to do and how to do it. In contrast, one of the biggest concerns while watching TV might be whether to watch channel 231 or 452.
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PIP, baby!
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Have you not been on the internet and read what people believe or post?
Almost without fail these people grew up watching TV.
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Sadly, nothing backs you up. You might want to think about your personal bias.
It also helps to learn to slaughter sacred cows.
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That coming from a computer user - I bet, most people zoning out in front of the TV will object to your analysis... ...likely even claim, that zoning out in front of the TV teaches you more than zoning out in front of World of Warcraft... ;-)
Neither would automatically be right, but it's just the reflex action assuming it's the other side who is the more stupid one.
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likely even claim, that zoning out in front of the TV teaches you more than zoning out in front of World of Warcraft... ;-)
Not if I'm streaming documentaries through Netflix on my secondary monitor while grinding ;-)
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>Yes yes, I know, a generalization...but in my experience, it's the truth.
Err, its still a generalization with nothing to back it up. I'm not one typically to defend TV, but I can imagine a credible opposite to your argument.
When I watch TV, I'm either watching comedies or watching something that is teaching me something. With comedies, I'm often laughing or commenting on the show to the person next to me. During the other shows I would feel intellectually stimulated, pause it, maybe do a related web se
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When I watch TV, I watch TV and I hate when someone talks over plot points or action or the humor. I think DVRs have saved me from a murder charge or two.
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I strongly suspect that the dumber part would apply to what the subject was watching. Sure, an American Idol marathon followed by countless hours of ... well, a vast array of mindless television designed to fill the airwaves slightly better than a test pattern, could dumb the subject down just below the IQ of a rock (my apologies to the rocks for the implied insult).
Some shows are educational, either in their direct education value (documentaries) or through making you think
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My favourite TV snack is celery and nutella [wikipedia.org]. Healthy, tasty, and filling.
90% of the calories from sugar and fat.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that celery is a calorie negative food still doesn't make up for the fact that nutella is fat and sugar with chocolate and hazelnut flavor.
I dunno if it's worse than peanut butter, but healthy it isn't.
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Taken from the website http://www.nutellausa.com/ingredients.htm [nutellausa.com] : ingredients: sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (from milk), soy lecithin: an emulsifier, vanillin: an artificial flavor.
And the nutrition label:
http://www.nutellausa.com/nutrition-facts.htm [nutellausa.com]
It's about on par with Jif.
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Who claimed Jif is healthy? The primary ingredient of your Nutella is sugar, and then oil, and then nuts, and ingredients are required to be listed in the order of their proportion in the US (so sugar could be 80% of Nutella and that would still be an accurate ingredient list). You're almost certainly just eating a pile of sugar and oil on celery. If you want healthy, start looking at something that has the nuts as the primary ingredient instead of one of the other ones.
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Who claimed Jif is healthy?
If you want healthy, start looking at something that has the nuts as the primary ingredient
Uh....
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Note that Nutella is available in two versions in the US: European and US-made.
The imported version does not contain palm oil and it tastes, in my opinion, much better. Unfortunately, it costs twice as much.
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It's about on par with Jif.
Why on Earth are you drinking bath cleaner?
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Everything is healthy in reasonable portions.
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Oh, and a bit of self promotion (which I love to do, lol)...over the course of a month, I wrote a series of articles about being healthy while gaming...two of them deal with nutrition, one with exercise, and the other is comfort. You might find them interesting:
http://livingwithanerd.com/tag/healthy-gamer-series/ [livingwithanerd.com]
What if it's the heart rate? (Score:2)
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I suspect that that may be some part of it, but I would guess that a larger part of it is ads.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209095753.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Apparently, there is also no correlation to weight gain and watching TV if you are watching DVDs or movies. The correlation does not exist between TV and being fat, only TV with ads. Similarly, playing on a computer has minimal ads, like watching a DVD, and shockingly, neither activity relates to obesity.
Also, typing one handed is useful for more than j
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I don't think food has anything to do with it
That is impossible, of course. Like saying you don't think overfilling your gas tank has nothing to do with how much gas you put in, but its because you didn't drive enough.
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They probably aren't filled equally.
The article doesn't have any numbers in it, but if you put the difference between obese and not for 10 year old kids at 10 pounds their intake would need to be within 10 calories per day of one another, to be 'equal'.
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On the internet you type, you move your arm to the mouse, you move the mouse, you shift in your chair, you type some more. You also use core muscles to remain upright.
Watching TV, you pretty much lounge completely motionless most of the time.
Apostrophe's (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Apostrophe's (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot two: "Abu'se" and "apo'strope's".
As somebody else mentioned some time ago, an apostrophe means "Caution, S ahead!"
After all, an S is difficult to navigate as we all know, and it's easy to fly off the track.
"Active"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because sitting there and typing or moving the mouse is huge amounts of activity! I can eat a bag of M&Ms and drink coke while coding, and I'm sure there are plenty who can scoff pizza, coke and crisps without a problem!
You've got to lick your fingers well to make sure that you don't leave a mess on your keyboard, but other than that the computer "activity" isn't that much of an obstacle for eating.
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That may be true while coding, but if you're playing an online game, taking your hands off the keyboard for even a few second means you could lose*. In my experience, most people don't li
Re:"Active"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could see Computers have having three distinct benefits over TV.
1) Moving the mouse and typing is more active then moving your thumb to change channels
2) Playing video games is more physically involved then watching TV. I care about how my character does so my body reacts in a similar manner as though I were getting exercise; heart racing, mild sweating, muscles tightening, etc... Albeit this isn't on the same level as if I were outside playing ball, but I still get a bit more of a workout then if I was watching something mildly or not particularly interesting on TV.
3) When I am eating or drinking while playing video games; I see computer interaction more engaging and thus kind of like putting down your fork between bites during a meal. You eat slower and digest what's eaten better. When watching TV it's easy to have one hand on the remote while the other is in a bag of chips or popcorn.
Of course this is my own opinion and based on my own experiences. I've only heard that putting your fork down between bites is good for loosing weight, I don't have a reference.
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You've got to lick your fingers well to make sure that you don't leave a mess on your keyboard, but other than that the computer "activity" isn't that much of an obstacle for eating.
Which is exactly why most coders don't eat and code at the same time. Yes, some do, but most have learned it's just not worth it for obvious reasons.
And I can agree that gaming on a PC does make one think less of food and eat less. I found myself eating less playing games than even not playing games.
Re:"Active"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but not to the extent that TV allows.
I'm nibbling on a snack right now, but I don't feel the "need" to eat all the time in front of a computer, because most of the time my hands are busy typing.
When I watched commercial TV, I tended to feel like I had to have something to do, and the TV stations set up time every (what is it now, ten minutes) where I can go get food. I'd graze almost constantly, because my hands were free. When I surf the Web, I will occasionally snack, but not nearly as often. Oddly enough, I still have a small snack in the evening around 8PM, which used to be the "sit down in front of the TV" time, and I think that snack is a carryover from that. But the snack is a lot smaller than it was when we had a TV (and I still watch recorded shows on the computer, but I keep my hands busy with my smartphone instead of food).
If commercials didn't exist, or were only run between shows rather than every few minutes, I don't think we'd eat as much either. Commercial break comes on, we go off and put together some food. Break is only 2-3 minutes long (or is it still that short?) so you can't really prepare anything even vaguely healthy. You go for prepared comfort foods that can be eaten easily.
I realize this is one person's anecdote, and this may only apply to me, but I strongly suspect that several important factors differentiate TV from computers,
- TV is an almost completely passive activity, whereas the computer engages you and distracts you from thoughts of food.
- With TV, your hands are completely or almost completely free so you can easily stuff food continuously, with a computer you might reach out to grab a handful of snack every few minutes.
- Good-looking foods are shown to you every ten minutes or so on the TV, with enforced breaks to allow you the opportunity to get food. On a computer, you largely set your own breaks and people tend to get up less to get food. And when they do, there's no absolute rush to get back and beat the commercials so you might even get healthier foods.
If computing could be done while leaving the hands and mouth completely free, I'd suspect people would start munching more.
I'm not saying that everyone who watches TV is constantly stuffing their maw with junk food, or that computer users constantly starve themselves, but I think the differences between the activities can lead to very different eating behaviors.
And don't dismiss the calories burned by typing. :)
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Bah, keyboards are cheap. For 5 bucks I can get a new one. Probably less time and effort then trying to keep this one clean~
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If nothing else - it slows down your eating.
Eating too fast is one of top reasons Obesity occurs. Your stomach takes a while to send the "I'm full" signal to your brain. Something like 8 minutes, I think. So when you slam down a bunch of food and then think "I'm full" you end up over-eating, more than your stomach can handle. So your body turns it to fat.
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Well, you hope, anyway. Viruses these days..
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! I can eat a bag of M&Ms and drink coke while coding
Do you believe that is what most kids are doing in front of their computer?
How well do you do circle-strafing in a FPS with opponents trying to kill you while snacking? What does your char do while you are going to get that snack?
The premise seems reasonable. A child playing a game is both more involved (distracted from snacking), and less able (hands are busy), as a generality, than one on a couch watching TV.
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"can", yes. But do most people do so?
I only eat breakfast in front of my computer. However, when I'm watching TV, I almost always have something to eat either in my hand or nearby.
One big difference (Score:2)
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It probably depends on what you use the computer for. If it's a child's room, it will probably be used for first person shooters and pornography. It's hard to eat pizza while engaging in either one of those.
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No, most people eat without even noticing.
*WARNING PERSONAL ACECDOTE* not being used to indicate a data point.
One of the things I made a serious conscious effort to change to lower my caloric intake was to not eat in front of the computer. I dont' spend a lot of time just sitting in front of thet tyube.
Then somethign happened. I found myself watching more TV because I would snack while watching TV. That is how bad the human brain drives peopel to eat, even when there is plenty of food.
Before dieting I spent
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I do not diet, but I found out that if I am doing something with the computer (browsing the 'net, coding, writing /. comments) or not (fixing a broken tape recorder or other device) I want to eat less. Maybe it's because I have something to do and am too lazy to get up and grab something to eat.
On the other hand, if I am watching a movie (on the computer, I don't have a separate TV), then I am basically doing nothing and start thinking "what else could I do while watching this movie", then I remember that I
I'm writing a book (Score:3, Funny)
"Gaming your way to weightloss!"
It works, I swear! I remember one particular weekend where I lost 5lbs working through raid encounters in Everquest 1. Who needs food when lewt is raining from the sky!
thinking calories (Score:5, Interesting)
While shoving a mouse around and typing does not seem like significant exercise, I think there's a bigger energy expenditure in interactive thought. Zoning out at the television does not engage many areas of the brain, but chatting with friends or deciding where to browse next takes a bit more power. Brain activity burns calories. I've personally noticed that my head warms up more when I'm thinking, especially if the work or play is cerebral or there's a time pressure involved. It would be very cool to see a study on just how different these tasks are, with brain activity monitored objectively.
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I've personally noticed that my head warms up more when I'm thinking
Moss, is that you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD95BLpEUcE [youtube.com]
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http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-42053.html [physicsforums.com]
Here is some information about the body consumption (in kcal) for many activities :
Sleeping 70
Lying quietly 80
Sitting 100
Standing at ease 110
Conversation 110
Strolling 140
Driving a car 140
Playing violin or piano 140
Hiking, 4 mph 350 407
Swimming 500 582
Long-distance running 900
Sprinting 1400
So if we say piano requires the same amount of energy as coding (I would say it requires less mental effor
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Add to that some vigorous asymmetric limb exercises that are more frequent in computer users, coupled with an increased in protein synthesis and we're probably a fair bit over hundred calories
It is obvious (Score:5, Funny)
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That's my diet plan. And I'm 5'9" and 120 lbs. It must work! Maybe I should convince girls to join me?
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The one which tests the effect on adults.
Not only that I bet many people loose weight... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not only that I bet many people loose weight... (Score:5, Insightful)
I found that I get caught up in the computer and what I'm working on and forget to stop and eat. When I get really focused on my work I'll forget to stop and eat and when I'm playing a new game I may only eat once a day for the first weekend.
A CIV player.
What about food commercials? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention opportunity. Start a commercial break with a picture some luscious food item, and your audience will use the rest of the commercial break checking out the fridge to see what is available to eat during the next ten minutes of programming. At the end of the commercial break, they will grab whatever is the most prepared and easiest to eat in front of the TV and rush back. Next commercial, repeat.
That can be as many as 4 snacks per hour (they still only do 4 5-minute breaks an hour, right?).
If
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We already knew that geeks are skinny... (Score:2)
The real news is that this is not because of lack of exercise, but because of lack of food.
IS there a link to the study? (Score:5, Interesting)
Previous studies showed that the TV made no difference at all. Kids who weren't active in the house, where no more active when they went outside.
The studies I have read based on TV obesity all showed that TV was not the cause, but just something people who were inactive happened to do.
Why the child was inactive turns out to be a number of other reasons. depression, stress, bad house hold habits. and so on.
What TV does seem to do is make people think they need to eat, vie food commercials.
Sadly, there are surprisingly few good* studies that try to tease apart the variables in TV watching. I would like to read the detail in this study.
How were the children selected? What where there daily activities before the study? Was the study done at a time of year that coincide with better weather? How where controls done? was diet monitored?
The reason given seems a little thin, since eating at the computer is as easy as the TV. OF course, there could be a cultural reason for not eating while on the computer.
Quite frankly, I would be for the removing of food commercials. It would never happen, but I would wager that after a year the obesity problem would start to slow down, if not stop.
*lots of bad studies.
Re:IS there a link to the study? (Score:5, Informative)
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Why the child was inactive turns out to be a number of other reasons. depression, stress, bad house hold habits. and so on.
Or, you know, the child is just naturally more laid-back than his or her peers. It's not always something bad.
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Might have phrased that differently (Score:4, Funny)
directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room
Immediate mental image: the child's weight changing instantly as the TV comes and goes.
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directly affected by placing a TV in the child's room
Immediate mental image: the child's weight changing instantly as the TV comes and goes.
It begs two questions: how big does your television have to be to cause a local increase in gravity and where can I buy one?
Correction: *boring* TV makes people fat (Score:2)
What would be interesting is whether it's the programmes or the advertisements that make people (and I doubt that it's limited to just childr
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I think even an exciting TV show would allow for snacking pretty easily. Grab handy foods during the commercials, and not matter how exciting the show your hands and mouth are still free while watching. You have an enforced break (commercial) to get food, and a continuous opportunity to consume it.
TV and food just go together. You have sufficient facilities free to eat continuously when watching TV (hands, mouth). You do not when on the computer. At best, all your surfing is done with the mouse and you
can we get a real study ? (Score:2)
instead of the google translation of a 2 paragraphs-long article ?
Calories burned during brain activity (Score:2)
An interesting way to validate this study would be a lab controlled experiment where people are connected to a calorie consumption monitor while either watching tv (track "entertainment" vs "educational" programming), using a computer (track "working - coding, writing docs, etc." vs "gaming" vs "reading"), or reading (track "news paper" vs "fictional novel").
Brains use a fair bit of calories thinking and processing information. Should be easy enough to prove (or disprove) that watching TV requires fewer cal
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I'd like to see what a study including video games would say. Does what you use the television for matter most, or where you sit?
Any sedentary activity... (Score:2)
... can make you fat if you do too much of it, moderation and monitoring of what you eat vs the energy you expend is what counts.
You can lose weight in marathon gaming sessions, I know I've lost a few pounds over weekends with huge long games of Civ4 or Galciv 2.
jobs was right (Score:2)
You watch television to turn your brain off
and you work on your computer
when you want to turn your brain on.
(Steve Jobs, Macworld, Feb 2004)
who can eat when (Score:2)
You are busy fragging with both hands ?
One obvious point: (Score:2)
The TV fosters passivity. Cattle mentality.
The Internet is more for active people. Not necessarily with the body (apart from porn), but with the brain. It supports active participation. Look at how it already changed government and the media. People stop being cattle because of it.
Also, if you have ever played Q3 CPMA or Richard Burns Rally (on a force feedback wheel) for a couple of hours, you’ll know that you get hot and sweat like a pig from the stress. (The heat is proof for the burning of energy.
Maybe theres a link between the hands... (Score:2)
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On a computer the hands are kept busy, typing mashing buttons whatever, watching TV hands are idle, perhaps flipping channels on a remote. Seems there may be a direct link between keeping ones hands occupied by typing/button mashing vs. idle where it's easier to stuff ones face due to having nothing to do.
Which means there's a market for a hands free computer interface so that one may stuff ones face while operating a computer!
Oat bran, the silent killer (Score:2)
Article on TV making kids fat. Check. See you in six months.
OK, what's next... cell phone cancer? No, too soon. Video game violence? Not quite yet.
How about one where creationism believing fat kids using cell phones under power lines can get cancer unless they use Linux and stop global warming using stimulus money for stem cell research?
Ooo! How about a good "Amerkinz am teh stoopids" study based on a phone survey?
Correlation... (Score:2)
...is not causation.
Makes sense to me (Score:2)
But really... (Score:2)
it depends on how many times you lift them.
Suggestion and theory of fat accumulation key (Score:2, Informative)
My personal experiences (Score:2)
It seems most people who are serious about PC gaming are average weight to slender. I've seen this on mosaics of pictures people posted on gaming forums, also pictures of game mappers, and also at places like QuakeCon (where Quake 3 tends to be the core game featured every year) year after year. Of course these people tend to have some competitive spirit so that might have something to do with it. Even the people I know who play WoW, most are average weight. There is the occasional fatty here and there, but
Re:CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION (Score:5, Funny)
Repeating as needed, may reduce weight as part of a calorie controlled diet.
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Repeat it as needed.
Don't worry, this is Slashdot. We got that covered.
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Yes, but it is not NOT correlation either.
I couldn't find a link to any study. So I'll just let this pass as another poor 'study' about TV done by someone who doesn't understand what's needed to do a good study.
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Agreed. It's not the tv making them fat. It's the fat that makes them fat.
Eating (Score:2)
Snacking works better when you are 10 feet from a TV with your hands empty then when you are over your keyboard mousing and typing.
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Since when did anything require credibility to get on the front page of Slashdot?
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Too late. Oh, by the way, when you rolled over last night, you crushed a small country.