The science of sitting.

We all know — don't we? — that sitting too much isn't healthy. (I love my motorized sit-stand desk, which I demonstrate here.) I'm interested in reading the science of sitting, and there's some good material here, but the family life part of it kind of annoyed me:

In [one study], researchers determined that watching an hour of television can snip 22 minutes from someone’s life. If an average man watched no TV in his adult life, the authors concluded, his life span might be 1.8 years longer, and a TV-less woman might live for a year and half longer than otherwise. 

So I canceled our cable, leaving my 14-year-old son staggered. I’d deprived him of his favorite shows on The Food Network, a channel that, combined with sitting, explains much about the American waistline. (Thankfully, my son is blessed with his father’s lanky, string-bean physique.)

1. Did you take his books away too? What if he were willing to watch TV standing up? It seems to me this anti-TV agenda is wholly separate. Maybe you have some other reason for canceling cable, but this is bad science (and kind of a mean thing to do to the kid, but you report it as if it was funny to "stagger" him).

2. You inform us that America is fat, but your son and husband are skinny. Insults + bragging = annoying.