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Americans Spend More Time Sitting Than Ever Before

And it’s not just adults, but kids, too.

A new report found that Americans across all age groups are spending more time on their butts than ever before. Adolescents spend 8.2 hours a day sitting, while adults spend 6.4 hours a day sitting. That’s up an hour for both groups from the last time a survey like this was run in 2016, according to JAMA. The surveys, pulled from national data on 52,000 people, show that most of that sitting can be traced to watching television or videos, with 62 percent of children, 59 percent of teens, and 65 percent of adults watching two or more hours of TV per day. And when we’re not watching TV, we’re probably staring at our computers even if we’re not at work, with rates almost doubling for adults and spiking for kids. These rates might seem high, but researchers note that it’s possible we sit around more than we say we do, since the data is self-reported.