Slashdot Mirror
Sitting Down Too Long Is Bad Even If You Exercise
Ant tips the week-old news that sitting down too much is not good for you, even if you are otherwise fit. A blog at the LA Times reports a followup from Swedish exercise experts: they propose "establishing a new way of thinking about sedentary behavior. They suggest abolishing 'sedentary behavior' as a synonym for not exercising. Instead, sedentary time should be defined as 'muscular inactivity' to distinguish it from not doing any exercise at all." These experts warn that the excessively sedentary are running serious health risks, irrespective of how much exercise they get when they're not plonked behind a desk or lying on a sofa.
That bugged me when I first read it too... does it mean that if I sit down for 5 minutes a day then it doesn't matter how much exercise i'm doing for the rest of the 86395 minutes in the day?
I haven't bothered, but I think that once you untangle all the crap from the article and resolve the contradictions the message is basically "get off your bum and go for a walk". I also expect you'd find a reference to chewbacca and wookies too... it just doesn't make sense.