Stand up for good health and a long life
We all know that exercise is good for you. Since obesity has been linked so strongly to a lack of activity, public health guidelines have concerned themselves with promoting increasing physical activity with little or no attention to the topic of the amount time spent sitting.
But does sitting adversely affect health risk factors or mortality? Do people who sit for most of the day think they are covered because they exercise a few times a week?
We have known for many years that sitting is just plain hard on your back. Studies have shown that the pressure in the discs of the back is actually higher when sitting compared to standing and the forces on all the back tissues, including bone, disc, ligament and muscles, are increased while sitting.
Now the American Cancer Society has released the results of a long-term study that looked at how sitting affects health, taking into account smoking, body mass index, and other factors.
Several past studies have established a correlation between obesity, diabetes, diet, cardiovascular disease risk factors and time spent sitting, but very few studies have examined sitting and its affects on mortality.
This study tracked 123,216 healthy men and women who had no history of cancer, heart attack, stroke, or emphysema/other lung disease from 1993 to 2006 in order to explore the association between sitting time and mortality.
The results showed that women who spent six hours per day or longer sitting were 37 pre cent more likely to die during that 13-year period than those who sat less than three hours a day. Men who sat more than six hours a day were 18 per cent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than three hours per day.
When combined with a lack of physical activity, the association was even stronger. Women and men who both sat more and were less physically active were 94 per cent and 48 per cent more likely, respectively, to die compared with those who reported sitting the least and being most active.
Some jobs involve standing or walking for most of the day, but what can be done if you have a desk job. Ergonomic research is finding that standing at a workstation for longer periods is not only reducing aches and pains, but increasing productivity as well. Adjustable desks are definitely more expensive, but a fixed standing desk is no more expensive than a standard one.
It is becoming more common to find desks that elevate at a push of a button so that the worker can stand for periods alternating with sitting. Now with this recent research, stand-up desks not only are extremely good for reducing injury, they now have support for reducing mortality.
So if you find yourself sitting for hours on end consistently every day, whether it be working, watching TV, or playing video games, find a reason to get up out of your chair.
Go for a walk, get out in the garden, play in the park – just do something to change your circumstances so that you don’t fall into the trap of too much sitting.
Kerry Senchyna holds a bachelor of science degree in kinesiology and is owner of West Coast Kinesiology in Maple Ridge.
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