Too much TV is bad for your health like smoking, study says.

According to a research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, every hour of television a person watches reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by almost 22 minutes. And if you’re watching more than 6 hours of TV a day, it will shorten your lifespan by a whopping 5 years!

The research is not saying that watching TV is bad, but it’s what you are NOT doing because you are watching TV. Aside from being physically inactive while watching TV, people typically munch food (specially junk foods) while they’re hooked on their favorite show.

Here are the side effects for watching too much TV:

1. Diabetes: Prolonged television watching could increase your chance of getting Type 2 diabetes.

2. Weight Gain: Another new study suggests that watching TV contributes to obesity among couch potatoes.

3. Headaches and Back pain: Recent research suggests that spending an excessive amount of time on screen-based activities may be bad for your back and it may cause headaches too.

Image courtesy of The Telegraph