Gaining inches on your waistline?  The problem may lie in your morning commute, Men’s Health reported.

A new study has found a link between Americans driving for longer distances and an increase in the obesity rate.

“Each minute that we spend in a car is probably the most deadly minute that we can spend in a day—in terms of activity,” said Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, and author of the study. “We’re not using any energy.”

While we’re also seated at the office, there are options for getting up or moving around, Jacobson explained.  Those options, of course, don’t exist behind the wheel.

Luckily, there are a few simple rules you can follow to avoid excess weight gain from driving your car.  Take a look:

-Eat before you leave your house.  Prepare yourself a healthy breakfast or snack, so you’re less likely to be tempted by calorie-packed fast food restaurants.

-Maximize your movement outside of the car.  Park farther away, even when there’s a close parking spot.  Take the stairs instead of the elevator.  At pit stops, take a brief walk, if possible.

-Avoid road rage.  Leave earlier to beat traffic, take a more scenic route, or pop in a favorite CD, because studies have shown that stress leads to weight gain.

Click here to read more from Men’s Health.

It’s not just you: People are actually becoming addicted to checking their smartphones, according to a new study.

Much like any other addiction, “checking” isn’t a random act.  It is actually associated with a set of contexts that trigger the habit.  Some people, for instance, become accustomed to checking for emails while driving or looking at news while bored.

While scientists and media have raised the concern of repetitive, even obsessive, use of phones, users themselves do not regard frequent checking as a problem, but rather describe it as an “overuse” or an “annoyance.”

There are advantages and disadvantages with the habit, researchers say.  One one hand, users are more connected to the world and can find out information more quickly.  On the other, the habit can be a distraction and can cause people to miss important things in their immediate surroundings.

Of particular concern is people’s tendency to check their phones while driving, which can lead to car accidents.  Phone overuse can also lead to a poor work-life balance and increased stress.

If you want to break your phone habit, try designating specific safe times to check your phone during the day.  Rather than check your phone during your commute, check it afterward.  No email is worth risking your life.  Also, if possible, turn your phone off and put it away after work.

While the legal blood-alcohol limit may be 0.08 percent, no amount of alcohol in a person’s system seems to be safe for driving, according to a new study.

University of California, San Diego researchers found that blood-alcohol levels far below the legal limit were associated with increased risk of injury and death while driving.

The researchers compiled data from nearly 1.5 million fatal car accidents in the United States that occurred from 1994 to 2008.  The results indicated that accidents were 36.6 percent more severe even when alcohol was barely detectable in a driver’s blood.

Even with a BAC of 0.01, there were 4.33 serious injuries for every non-serious injury compared to 3.17 serious injuries for sober drivers.

“Compared with sober drivers, buzzed drivers are more likely to speed, more likely to be improperly seat-belted and more likely to drive the striking vehicle, all of which are associated with greater severity,” explained David Phillips, lead researcher and UC San Diego sociologist.

Furthermore, there was a strong “dose-response” relationship, the researchers said.  The greater the BAC, the greater the average speed of the driver and the greater the severity of the accident.

The findings persist even when taking into account other factors, such as inattention, fatigue and time of day/year.

“We hope that our study might influence not only U.S. legislators, but also foreign legislators, in providing empirical evidence for lowering the legal BAC even more,” Phillips said. “Doing so is very likely to reduce incapacitating injuries and to save lives.”

The study was published in the journal Addiction.

Teenagers and young adults who suffer from anxiety or depression are more likely to take risks while driving, according to a new study.

A team of researchers led by Bridie Scott-Parker from the Queensland University of Technology followed more than 760 young drivers and found that anxiety and depression accounted for a significant increase in risky driving behavior.

Additionally, they found the association between mental health and risky driving was greater for women than men.

The study adds to previous research that has found that anxiety and depression are linked with other risky behaviors by adolescents such as unprotected sex, smoking and high alcohol consumption.

“What this study sought to do was look at whether or not psychological distress could also be linked to risky driving behaviors in young people, such as speeding, not wearing a seat belt and using a mobile phone while at the wheel,” said Scott-Parker.

According to Scott-Parker, this research could be used to identify young drivers most at risk of psychological distress and therefore a greater crash risk on the road through risky driving.

“These drivers could be targeted with specific road safety countermeasures and efforts made to improve their mental wellbeing by monitoring them for signs of depression and anxiety,” she said.

The study was published in Injury Prevention.

We know driving under the influence of alcohol can lead to terrible consequences, but what about driving under the influence of euphoria?  A new study suggests that traffic fatalities rise among fans of winning teams on game days.

“The thrill of victory may result in a not-so-thrilling consequence for winning fans’ drive home,” researchers said in a press release. “While some sports junkies will be quick to tell you they live and die by whether their favorite sports team wins, there may be more truth in their statements than they know.”

The researchers analyzed data from 271 sporting events that took place over an eight-year period. The games were highly anticipated football and basketball games, such as playoffs and rivalry games, both professional and collegiate. They also had sports fans rate the closeness of the games.

The researchers then cross checked the data with statistics from the national Highway Safety Administration’s traffic fatality database to determine how many fatal traffic accidents occurred in the winning team’s hometowns on the dates of the games.

“We find that the closer a game is the more automobile fatalities there are, especially those involving alcohol,” the researchers said. “This increase in number of fatalities, however, only happens in locations with high numbers of winning fans (game sites and winning hometown).”

In other words, there was no similar increase in traffic accidents in the losing teams’ hometowns.

High levels of testosterone after witnessing a close game seem to influence how fans of the winning team drive, according to the authors.

“It would be wise to allow for a ‘cooling off’ period, where one could bask in the glory of victory safely,” the researchers advised.

A new study indicates there may be an increased risk of automobile crashes among teenage drivers who start school earlier in the morning.

Researcher analyzed the crash rates of students who attended high schools in two Virginia school districts, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.  In Virginia Beach, high school classes began at 7:20-7:25 a.m. –  over an hour earlier than the adjacent Chesapeake district, where classes began at 8:40 – 8:45 a.m.

The weekday crash rate for teen drivers in Virginia beach was 25 percent higher (80 crashes for every 1,000 students) than the rate for teen drivers in Chesapeake (64 crashes for every 1,000 students).

Researchers said traffic congestion was similar for both cities and unlikely to have accounted for differences in crash rates.

“We were concerned that Virginia Beach teens might be sleep restricted due to their early rise times and that this could eventuate in an increased crash rate,” said lead author Robert Vorona, MD, associate professor of internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va, in a press release.  “We are planning to perform subsequent studies to follow up on these results and to investigate other potential ramifications of early high school start times.”

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the average teen needs a little more than nine hours of sleep each night.  However, chronic sleep restriction is a common problem among teens because biological changes that occur during adolescence shift the onset of sleepiness later in the night.

Researchers believe the delay can make it a challenge for teens to get enough sleep when they have to wake up early for school.

Vorona suggested that starting high school later in the morning may promote driver alertness and potentially decrease crash rates by allowing teens to get more sleep at night.

“We believe that high schools should take a close look at having later start times to align with circadian rhythms in teens and to allow for longer sleep times,” he said.  “Too many teens in this country obtain insufficient sleep. Increasingly, the literature suggests that this may lead to problematic consequences including mood disorders, academic difficulties and behavioral issues.”

Previous studies have shown that delaying school start times by one hour could also enhance students’ cognitive performance by improving attention and increasing rate of performance, as well as reducing mistakes and impulsivity.

The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.