“Each hour you spend watching TV increases your risk of death by 11%.” The average person has a 100% chance of dying, so if you watch an hour of TV after work today, you’ll increase that to a 111% chance. Watch out, your flatscreen is deadly!
This is just one of the shocking statistics in a recently released infographic. It’s pink, it’s an infographic, it has meat cleavers scattered throughout… what’s not to like? It also contains some pretty scary statistics — they confirm that as a result of all the automation and improvements in technology, jobs now require more desk time and less running about than they did 50 years ago (at least in the US), and it’s affecting workers’ health. The more you sit, the less calories you burn. Sitting burns one calorie a minute (which means you’d have to sit for 95 minutes to burn off a medium-sized apple). It’s not surprising, then, that this would result in an average weight gain of 14.6 pounds (6.6 kilograms) a year.
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If the only exercise you get each day is when you push your swivel chair towards and away from your desk, you are more likely to die of heart disease. Desk jobs also mean you’re more likely to have eye and vision problems from staring at your computer screen all day. Add all this to a stressful job (and that axe murderer of a TV), and it’s surprising you’re not dead yet.
What can you do to counteract all of this nastiness (besides change careers)? Exercise before or after work, sit slightly back in your chair and carry around a hand sanitiser to keep the germs away (they like keyboards more than public bathrooms, apparently).
