Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Jul 16;9(7):e101860.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101860. eCollection 2014.

Exploring causality between TV viewing and weight change in young and middle-aged adults. The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study

Harri Helajärvi  1 , Tom Rosenström  2 , Katja Pahkala  3 , Mika Kähönen  4 , Terho Lehtimäki  5 , Olli J Heinonen  1 , Mervi Oikonen  6 , Tuija Tammelin  7 , Jorma S A Viikari  8 , Olli T Raitakari  9
Affiliations

Exploring causality between TV viewing and weight change in young and middle-aged adults. The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study

Harri Helajärvi et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Television viewing time (TV time) is associated with increased weight and obesity, but it is unclear whether this relation is causal.

Methods and results: We evaluated changes in TV time, waist circumference (waist) and body mass index (BMI) in participants of the population-based Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study (761 women, 626 men aged 33-50 years in 2011). Waist and BMI were measured, and TV time was self-reported in 2001, 2007, and 2011. Changes in waist and BMI between 2001 and 2011 were studied a) for the whole group, b) in groups with constantly low (≤ 1 h/d), moderate (1-3 h/d), or high (≥ 3 h/d) TV time, and c) in groups with ≥ 1 hour in-/decrease in daily TV time between 2001 and 2011. BMIs in 1986 were also evaluated. We explored the causal relationship of TV time with waist and BMI by classical temporality criterion and recently introduced causal-discovery algorithms (pairwise causality measures). Both methods supported the hypothesis that TV time is causative to weight gain, and no evidence was found for reverse or bidirectional causality. Constantly low TV time was associated with less pronounced increase in waist and BMI, and waist and BMI increase was lower with decreased TV time (P<0.05). The increase in waist and BMI was at least 2-fold in the high TV time group compared to the low TV time group (P<0.05). Adjustment for age, sex, BMI/waist in 2001, physical activity, energy intake, or smoking did not change the results.

Conclusions: In young and middle-aged adults, constantly high TV time is temporally antecedent to BMI and waist increase.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Linear Regression Models with a quadratic term (dashed line) and without it (solid line).
Residual plots are for the model with only the linear term included. Jitter, that is a uniform random variable on the interval [−0.3, 0.3], was added to x-axis for enhanced discernibility, but did not enter to model estimation.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Waist circumference change during 10 years of follow-up depending on daily TV time, and its stability or change.
Figure 3
Figure 3. BMI change during 10 years of follow-up depending on daily TV time, and its stability or change.
In addition, the BMI from 1986 (14 years prior) is shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Hu FB, Li TY, Colditz GA, Willett WC, Manson JE (2003) Television watching and other sedentary behaviors in relation to risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes in women. JAMA 14: 1785–1791. - PubMed
    1. Edwardson CL, Gorely T, Davies MJ, Gray LJ, Khunti K, et al. (2012) Association of Sedentary behavior with Metabolic Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis. PLoS One 7(4): e34916 10.1371/journal.pone.0034916.e34916 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Grontved A, Hu FB (2011) Television viewing and risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality. JAMA 305: 2448–2455. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hu FB, Leitzmann MF, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA, Willett WC, et al. (2001) Physical activity and television watching in relation to risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus in men. Arch Intern Med 161: 1542–1548. - PubMed
    1. Wijndaele K, Brage S, Besson H, Khaw KT, Sharp SJ, et al. (2011) Television viewing and incident cardiovascular disease: prospective associations and mediation analysis in the EPIC Norfolk Study. PLoS One 6(5): e20058 10.1371/journal.pone.0020058 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Grants and funding

The Young Finns Study has been financially supported by the Academy of Finland: grants 126925, 121584, 124282, 129378, 117797, and 41071; the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, Kuopio, Tampere and Turku University Hospital Medical Funds, Juho Vainio Foundation, Paavo Nurmi Foundation, Finnish Foundation of Cardiovascular Research and Finnish Cultural Foundation, Sigrid Juselius Foundation, Tampere Tuberculosis Foundation and Emil Aaltonen Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

LinkOut - more resources