Spending 5 Hours A Day On Your Smartphone May Increase Obesity

Smartphones have become an inherent part of our lives, haven’t they? If there’s anything that we all are 100 percent loyal to in our lives, it’s our phones. We take care of it like it is our baby. For everything in our lives, we are dependent on our phones. It could be ordering food, figuring our way back to home after dining at a new restaurant in another part of the city, keeping a track on what we eat and how much are we walking each day — we use it for all! And hey, let’s not forget how our phones helps us feel virtually close to everyone that matters to us in our lives. It has helped us make new connections and also helped us rekindle our bonds with all those lost friends. While there can be a lot of emotional, technical, and practical benefits of using a smartphone. We tend to forget that it has its downsides too.

These days especially, every other day we come across posts on social media and articles in the newspaper that are giving us new reasons to be less attached to our beloved phones. We know how the blue light from the phone messes up our eyesight and sleep cycles, don’t we? For those of you who don’t know, the blue light that our phones emit through the screens restrains the production of a hormone called melatonin, which controls our circadian rhythm or sleep cycle (1). A fall in the melatonin levels makes it harder for one to fall asleep even on a tiring day.

Have you heard about the tech neck? Staring down at our lovable phones for longer duration of time in a dayncreates great tension on the neck and spinal regions of our body (2). Especially the cervical spine, the upper region of our vital spine that holds our head in place. Using the phone for too long can lead to a tech neck, where the cervical spine of our body takes a hit.

If all these weren’t scary enough reasons for us to stay unplugged from our phones, here’s another one, a biggie one — spending more than five hours on our smartphones in a day increases our odds of falling prey to obesity. You didn’t expect this, right? Neither did we! The same phone that helps us keep a track of the number of steps we’ve walked, the number of kilometers we’ve covered or the number of calories we’ve burned in a day is the main reason we could get obese in the long run. Let’s take a closer look at this study now.

What The Study Says-

The study, which was conducted by the American College of Cardiology, showed how spending more than five hours on smartphones can increase the risk of the problem of obesity especially for younger people (3).

Over a span of six months, the researchers studied a total of 1060 students, out of which 360 were men and 700 were women. And, they observed how nearly 43 percent of them developed the risk of obesity as they had been using their phones for more than five hours in a day. Because of using their phones, they developed lifestyle habits that contributed to the odds of developing heart problems as they ended up eating fast foods at least twice in a day and also showcased a spike in their sugar levels.

How Does Using Smartphone Incessantly Lead To Obesity

• If you’re always glued to your smartphone all the time, it makes you develop a sedentary lifestyle. There’s not much physical activity either. And, lack of physically activity can affect the musculoskeletal system of our body and higher the risks of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoarticular discomfort, and also premature death.

• Forget about distracted walking or studying. The real issue here is the problem of distracted eating. Studies have shown how people end up eating more when they’re glued to their cell phone screens (4). Remember having any meal while not watching your cell phone?

• You no longer visit people in real. Video calling has become one of the most massive hit features of a cell phone. People these days prefer to video call their friends and family instead of going to their homes and meeting them. You end up munching on food at home inching nearer to the world of obesity after a video call. Or even during one.

We get it peeps, mobile technology is undoubtedly very useful — the portability, the comfort, the access it provides to all the countless services, the entertainment and information resources it provides you with. It’s amazing! But, we need to look at it as a way to improve our health habits and lifestyle too. Now that your mobile phone helped you read about how using it too much can cause obesity, use this information and limit your usage of phone in your daily lives. How many hours do you spend on your phone every day? Let us know in the comments section below.

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