Real Estate July 22, 2010, 4:02PM EST

Louisiana Has the Most Sedentary Lifestyle

When it comes to kicking back, the Pelican State reigns supreme

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In Louisiana, where the humidity is as thick as the gumbo, people prefer to take it slow. Hunting, fishing, and outdoor sporting activity may have earned Louisiana the nickname "Sportsman's Paradise," but new data indicate that the more popular pastimes are sleeping, goofing off, and watching television.

In a new ranking by Businessweek.com based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Louisiana claims the top spot as the country's laziest state. To be clear, by "lazy" we do not mean lacking work ethic or engagement. Rather, it is a measure of leisure time spent doing sedentary activities compared with activities that require more physical effort, such as exercising and even working. Mississippi and Arkansas came in second and third, and while states in the south and southeast are represented heavily in the list, such East Coast states as Delaware and New York placed in the top 20.

Some cite the climate, others the lifestyle, infrastructure, or health education in the area. Peter Katzmarzyk, associate executive director at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., notes that Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas are in the Lower Mississippi Delta region, which is "very poor, has poor medical service, and is hot, humid, and has few opportunities for physical activity," he says. Obesity, physical activity, and nutrition—some of the state's biggest issues—are the center's priority research areas.

Sleep, Sit, Chat, Watch

Businessweek.com's ranking is based on five years (2004-08) of data from the BLS American Time Use Survey, which averages the time spent doing various activities each day across the entire population age 15 and older, including individuals who did not do the activity at all. Using state-level data, we evaluated the average leisure time engaged in sedentary activities: sleeping, watching television, surfing the Internet, playing board games, relaxing, thinking, and socializing, for example. These factors were weighed against other metrics, such as average time spent exercising and playing sports, time spent working, and the state's median age. The survey started only in 2003, so no data exist to show how patterns might have changed over time.

While residents in developed areas such as New Orleans, a compact city with sidewalks, gyms, and outdoor events, have opportunities to be active, Louisianans in the rest of the state spend more time at sedentary activities than the average American. According to BLS data, for example, they sleep an average 8 hours and 44 minutes per day, watch an average 3 hours and 5 minutes of television, socialize for 54 minutes, and relax for 29 minutes. The average time spent working among all Louisianans—2 hours, 41 minutes—is shorter than in all other states, according to the BLS data.

The average for the U.S. population: 8 hours, 35 minutes sleeping; 2 hours, 38 minutes watching television; 44 minutes socializing; 18 minutes relaxing; and 3 hours, 23 minutes working. Looked at another way, Louisianans over the course of a year spend on average 3,285 more minutes sleeping and 9,855 more minutes watching television than the national average.

In North Dakota, the least inactive state, people sleep 8 hours, 4 minutes; watch 2 hours, 19 minutes of television; socialize for 40 minutes; and relax for 22 minutes. The average time North Dakotans spend working is just over 5 hours.

Torpid Lifestyles

Averaged across Louisiana's population, time spent exercising and playing sports is about 17 minutes per day, on a par with the national level, although data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention show nearly 30 percent of Louisianans do not get any exercise.

Sedentary leisure time was slightly higher in Mississippi than Louisiana, but when age, exercise, and time spent working were factored in, Louisiana came out on top. It's important to note that the data were compiled prior to the recent BP oil spill, which has had an adverse impact on the Louisiana job market.