Jun 30, 2011
After a night of sleeping, you drive to work and pull up your desk chair and plant yourself at your desk. At lunch you walk to a nearby restaurant and sit to eat. You drive home, then sit at the dinner table, and then settle down in front of the TV. Sounds normal enough, right? Well, here’s some some bad news: All this sitting could be killing you.
Think this sounds ridiculous? A new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology may change your mind. Researchers analyzed survey responses from 123,216 people with no history of cancer, heart attack, stroke, or lung disease. They looked at the amount of time spent sitting and level of physical activity in relation to mortality over a period of 13 years. Results show that the more time people spent sitting, the higher their risk for death, especially in women. “Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than 3 hours a day. Men who sat more than 6 hours a day were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than 3 hours per day,” according to a press release from the American Cancer Society (http://goo.gl/nIOdO), which conducted the study.
Even worse news? The risk remained virtually the same, even when the scientists took into account the responders’ levels of physical activity. However, when they looked at individuals who sat for more than 6 hours a day and were physically inactive, the risk for death went up to 94% more for women and 48% more for men when compared to those who sat the least and were most active. In other words, sitting for long periods could be bad for you, even if you take time to exercise, but if you don’t, it could be even worse.
To be clear though, the study did not identify a causal link between sitting and a higher risk for death, but rather just an “association”. This means that a higher mortality risk was found in the people who sat more, but this was not necessarily caused by the sitting itself. Also, analysis of survey responses isn’t the most rigorous of study models, even with a sample size this big.
That being said, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to sit less, and move more. Get up and walk around the office every hour. Walk over to a colleague’s desk rather than calling or emailing them. At the very least, you burn more calories and keep your muscles, joints and mind more active.
If you do decide to go out and exercise, use our exercise tracker to record your progress! http://goo.gl/kZKBX
Are you active during the day or do you spend most of it sitting? How could you squeeze more movement into your day?