Study of college students finds no link between time spent in physically sedentary and active behaviors

Rouse and Biddle (2010) asked British university undergrads to record their main behavior, where they were and whom they were with, every 15 mins.

They found that the top activities were (in descending order): studying, shopping/hanging out, tv viewing, computer use, and sitting talking. Males spent significantly more time studying than females.

Most interesting, out of a total of 558 hours (for females), only 63 were spent doing things that involved physical activity -- that's only 11%!!

Another interesting finding is the lack of a correlation between "technological sedentary behaviors" (tv, computer, video games) and physical activity, suggesting that one has little to do with the other. As the authors point out, this finding runs counter to popular perception and suggest that efforts to increase physical activity by reducing sedentary behavior may be met with limited success.