I FOUND it impossible to believe what I was reading in your report 'Why being lazy is good for you' (January 12).

Sloth, the biblical term for laziness, is one of the deadly sins. While everyone needs rest and relaxation, these are always nicer when they follow a period of enjoyable activity, and nowadays we are spoilt for choice of how to spend our leisure time.

Moderation in all things is the key to a happy, healthy and productive life and, while I do not subscribe to the policy "a short life and a gay one", it is the quality of life that matters, not the quantity.

We have a relative who is in his 93rd year and is now in hospital. He has never been an active person, far from it, and has eaten and drank unwisely as well as out-living three wives, a lady-friend and all of his contemporaries.

Perhaps he is proof that doing little prolongs life, but I would not wish his life-style, present failing health and lack of activity and control of his life, on my worst enemy. What is so attractive and desirable in becoming a shadow of what once one was; of losing friends and mobility, with worsening sight and hearing?

On the other hand, I know very elderly people who enjoy their lives, but all are extremely active physically as well as mentally. This totally explodes the theory of a long life necessarily being a lazy one.

Heather Causnett,

Escrick Park Gardens,

Escrick,

York.

Updated: 11:42 Friday, January 14, 2005