# Linear regression and ordinal data

I am running a multiple regression looking at whether TV viewing predicts waist circumference (WC). When I ran through the tests with my tutor we placed WC as the dependant and TV as independent, then ran it again with some of the potential confounders. However, the TV variable is ordinal (1- never, 2- 0 to 59 mins, 3- 1 to 2 hours, 4- 2 to 3 hours, 5- 3 to 4 hours, 6- 4 to 5 hours, and 7- 5+ hours). Should I be recoding these as dummy variables? I also plan to run regressions with similarly collected snack food consumption ordinal data. I'm hesitant to do it differently to my tutor (who is away for 2 weeks), and think it may be too many dummy variables, but is it still ok to interpret the results as I would a continuous dataset (in terms of mins/hours)? Many thanks, Nick.

Bollen, K. A., & Barb, K. H. (1981). Pearson's $r$ and coarsely categorized measures. American Sociological Review, 46, 232–239. Retrieved from http://www.statpt.com/correlation/bollen_barb_1981.pdf.