They say the camera adds 10 pounds. How much does a computer add?

Recently released research seems to show that the Internet is a factor in weight gain among teenage girls. The study, conducted in the United States, included data on more than 5,000 girls and women between the ages of 14 and 21.

According to the study, conducted by a biostatistician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, teenage girls who spend more than 16 hours a week of “recreational” time on the Internet are almost twice as likely to have a change in their body-mass index. This is even after the researchers controlled for sleep, coffee and alcohol use. After physical activity, TV and video game use was factored in, the young women with the most Internet use still were about 57 per cent more likely to gain weight. The theory seems to be that those people who are online a lot are often not active when they are not on the computer.

What do you think? Does this make sense?

Robin

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.