Weight Loss Tip #130 – Spend less time on your smartphone to lose more weight

Have you considered the fact that your smartphone is making you more of a couch potato? Whether we’re willing to admit it or not, most of us do end up spending an inordinate amount of time on our phones. If you ask yourself how much time you spend on your phone each day on an average, you would probably say somewhere around two to three hours.

However, studies have found that the average college student spends as much as 5 hours staring at their smartphone’s screen [1]! The common scene everywhere now-a-days is a group of people sitting at the same place just staring at their tiny smartphone’s screens like zombies. These are the signs of smartphone addiction.

A study conducted by researchers at the Kent State University in Ohio, USA in 2013 found that smartphone usage among college students drastically reduced the amount of time they spent doing physical activities and also affected their overall fitness levels [1]. With instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, students also send close to 100 messages each day.

This also applies for adults who are hooked on to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, among other popular apps. The researchers observed that other than making people’s lives more sedentary, smartphones also tend to slow down people as they start walking much slower mainly because they are simultaneously using their phones. Did you know, a sedentary lifestyle can cause premature ageing?

This study, which was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity in 2013,studied around 300 students before it was concluded that ‘cellphones disrupt physical activity and reduce cardio-respiratory fitness.’

If you’ve been spending far too much time on your phone, it is about time you consciously changed this behaviour especially if you’re trying to lose weight. One way of doing this is to turn off your phone and leave it in your drawer during weekends when you don’t have to attend to work related phone calls. If need be, inform your relatives and friends to simply call on your landline.

Other than that, turn off your smartphone at least two hours before bedtime and set aside at least an hour every day to exercise without the constant pings of messages, emails and Facebook notifications.

Previous Weight Loss Tip

Reference

[1] Andrew Lepp, Jacob E Barkley, Gabriel J Sanders, Michael Rebold and Peter Gates. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 201310:79.  DOI: 10.1186/1479-5868-10-79

---

 

1. Prev:Weight Loss Tip #131 – Never go shopping on an empty stomach
2. Next:Weight Loss Tip #129 – Avoid eating alone at all costs!