Sleep through your TV to prevent fat gain?

We often read, and I have often pointed to, reports which stress the importance of sleep to health in general, but also to weight maintenance.    We also read of the dangers of sitting down too much -  our sedentary life is totally unnatural and stressful.

I just read this post, where a researcher brings those 2 ideas together - instead of watching your TV...take a nap.  Sleep through the programmes!  Sleep is better than just sitting....

Dr Buman’s work focuses on the relationship between physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep and health, and his talk was on a new cross-sectional study which examined the potential health impact of replacing time spent sitting down (e.g. sedentary behaviour) with light activity, moderate-to-vigorous activity, or even sleep.

Not surprisingly, he found that replacing sitting time with moderate or vigorous physical activity provides the biggest health benefit.  However, his analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey suggests that simply replacing your sitting time with light activity (e.g. standing or walking), or even sleep could result in significant health benefits

Here is a video where Dr Matt Buman of Arizona State University describes his new study which suggests that if people simply replaced their time sitting with time being active, or even with sleep, they would likely reduce their health risk.