Louisiana 'laziest' state in U.S.

New York, July 27 (ANI): Louisiana has topped a new list of the 'laziest' states in the U.S.

Lazy, as defined by Businessweek, is the amount of time people spend engaged in sedentary activities versus activities requiring physical effort -such as exercising or working.

Businessweek.com analyzed five years of data (2004-08) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and compiled a list of the 20 laziest states.

The BLS' American Time Use Survey recorded time spent on daily activities such as sleeping, watching television, surfing the Net, playing board games, relaxing, thinking and socializing.

Peter Katzmarzyk, associate executive director at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., said Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas are all in the Mississippi Delta region, an area that is "very poor, has poor medical service and is hot, humid and has few opportunities for physical activity," the New York Daily News quoted him as telling Businessweek.com

Louisiana residents spend, on average, 8 hours, 44 minutes sleeping and 2 hours, 41 minutes working each day. They watch more television than people of any other state except South Carolina. They rank third for spending the most time socializing (54 minutes). (ANI)