Thanks for much ado about nuthin'.

These kind of studies drive me nuts.

- An editorial in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that a number of studies determined that sitting around too much increases your chance of death.

- A new study published on the American Heart Association website, Circulation, suggests that too much television can take years off your life.

So, um, duh. I guess it's important to research this stuff, but it's so obvious. The television one, in particular, is pretty silly because here's how they explain their results.

"Prolonged watching of television equals a lot of sitting, which invariably means there's an absence of muscle movement," Dunstan says. If your muscles stay inactive for too long, it can disrupt your metabolism, he explains.

and

"Studies show that television leads to an increase in the consumption of energy-dense, snack-type foods," he says. "It's a stimulus for poor dietary behavior, whereas some of the other types of sedentary behavior are less likely to stimulate poor snacking behaviors." And because it burns so few calories -- about the same as sleeping, hour for hour -- watching TV tends to reduce a person's overall energy output, Dunstan adds.

Come on, man. I knew that already. What are you going to tell me next? That cleaning out my ears with a screwdriver is a bad idea? I knew that too! If you're going to publish a scientific paper, at least say something new, like tell us that TV is bad because little, microscopic plasma men jump out of the screen and bore holes through our skulls! Gimme something meaty.

At least the sitting study came up with "After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down."

That's kind of interesting, but I still need to know more. Maybe if I watch more science shows on TV, It'll help me learn the whole story.