Their basis was a study on the health of 20,000 males and females from Norfolk between the ages 45 to 79. The study was conducted from 1993 to 2006.
The research came out in the journal The Public Library of Science Medicine. Social class and body mass index had no role in life expectancy, according to the study.
The study first observed the lifestyle of the participants; those with no cancer or heart diseases at the start of the study were given 1 point for each of the four benchmarks. After their ages were factored in, after 11 years, those who at the start of the study lead unhealthy lifestyles were four times more likely to have died than those who got four points.
Smokers had the shortest lives, with 77 percent of them most likely to have passed away before the study was completed. A diet rich in fiber gave practitioners of this lifestyle 44 percent more chances of surviving the 11 years.
A previous study of 3,500 schoolchildren from inner-city secondary schools indicated the couch-potato lifestyle has reached epidemic level among young Britons. The study, released on May, defined the couch-potato lifestyle as one filled with television watching, playing computer games for a long period of time and feasting on junk food.
