Young men who experience depression early in life may be especially vulnerable to becoming sedentary later, choosing to spend long hours each day online or watching television instead of engaged in physical activity.
The study of 761 adults in Montreal who were identified at the age of 20 as suffering from the symptoms of depression (in 2007-08) were asked to keep track of how much leisure time they spent in front of a TV or a computer screen (playing games or using the internet) four years later on (in 2011-12) when they were 24.
“We started out with the idea that early depression might later turn everyone into couch potatoes, just sitting around glued to the TV or a computer screen,” says Nancy Low, of McGill University’s department of psychiatry and one of the authors of the study that is published in the journal Preventive Medicine.
“But what we didn’t expect was to see such a clear difference between what men and women were doing.”
The researchers found that young men on average spend about four hours more online or watching TV each week than young women do. The total number of hours spent in front of a screen, whether it was the computer or the TV, was over 21 hours per week or more than three hours a day—more than twice the level of screen time recommended by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology for children and adolescents.
Depression’s vicious cycle
The information is particularly disturbing for two reasons: sedentary behavior is on the rise among the young and influences later behavior; and, because young people in the study weren’t asked about their use of cell/smartphones and tablets or the time that they spent reading, they may be spending even more time being sedentary than the figures suggest.
The next step is to see how online time is being spent by both men and women, since researchers believe that it is likely that young women are using the computer mainly for social interactions and communications (activities that will help them deal with depression), while men are spending more time in non-social interactions such as game-playing or checking the news (activities which may help them avoid the problem).
“This study signals that young men who have been depressed are more likely than young women to become trapped in a vicious cycle where depression later leads to more sedentary behavior which in turn may contribute to later health problems that also include depression,” Low says.
“What we need to do is figure out how best to intervene early in the process. And one of the things we’re looking into now is how that online time, and things like mobile apps, can best be used to help young people deal with their depression and become more physically active.”
Source: McGill University. Republished from Futurity.org under Creative Commons License 3.0.
