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Regular Exercise Not Enough To Make Up For Sitting All Day
An anonymous reader writes: Toronto researchers have found the amount of time a person sits during the day is associated with a higher risk of disease and death, regardless of regular exercise. The paper, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine (abstract), found that prolonged sedentary behavior was associated with a 15 to 20 per cent higher risk of death from any cause; a 15 to 20 per cent higher risk of heart disease, death from heart disease, cancer, death from cancer; and as much as a 90 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes, said Alter. And that was after adjusting for the effects of regular exercise. ... Engaging in 30 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous daily exercise does not mean it's OK to then "sit on your rear" for the rest of the day.
Sitting for eight or more hours a day can be deadly.
That fact has been hammered home in study after study showing the negative health effects -- including heart disease, poor circulation and joint pain -- associated with being parked on your behind for most of the day. The only sure way to prevent those problems, researchers have said, is to sit far less.
But there is growing evidence that there are ways to reverse the damage without necessarily committing to being on your feet for eight or more hours a day.
A new study by researchers at Indiana University published in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise suggests that the impaired blood flow in leg arteries can actually be reversed by breaking up your sitting regimen with five-minute walking breaks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/08/take-a-seat-you-may-be-able-to-reverse-the-damage-to-your-health/
This really makes me wish it was the norm for employers to provide standing desks. It seems like the evidence is mounting that traditional desks are killing us. But since a decent adjustable standing desk costs ~ $700-$1500 US, they're seen as a luxury.
I'm not sure it would be a bad thing for OSHA to require employers to provide adjustable desks for office workers.
Exactly, I'm in the same situation. The only thing that I can do is at least try to move as much as I can when I am allowed. So, I get up from my desk at least once an hour and walk to someone's office rather than calling them on the phone. Bathroom breaks are taken at the furthest bathroom from my office. When I was in a multi-floor office building I'd go to the bathroom on the floor three down from the office and take the stairs. In the morning I don't park in the spot closest to the building but walk a bit.
I'm still stuck though. The rest of my time is spent typing at my desk or in meetings and I can't exactly stand and pace in the corner of the meeting room.
I'm 150 pounds and 5'10" and used to drink a 20 ounce pop about once a day and eating fast food two or three times a week. That was balanced out by eating nothing more than what can fit in a small lunch bag for breakfast and lunch and dinner is typically a home cooked meal. Most of the time I could eat more but just ignore the hunger. That being said just getting off the 20 ounce pop means I don't have to watch what I eat nearly as much, these days I usually just drink pop when I'm too stressed out to pass it by.
Also I would say watch the alcohol consumption. I've seen coworkers put down more than one pitcher of beer and that is not low calorie.
True going to the gym, according to the article, would not help. This has not been proven. So take that assertion with a grain of salt. However, taking mini breaks during the day would be of benefit. The key is not to sit for prolonged periods of time.
You can get up and take a five minute smoke break every 30 minutes.
Sitting on your ass all day sounds so bad, taking up smoking might actually be a net-win.
Especially if you don't light the cigarette.
Smoking is one of the few things where you can look at study after study and it's unambiguously very, very bad for you. They don't have to tease correlations out like in the "latitude of birth correlates with risk of hangnails" kind of studies, it just jumps right out of the data.
So take a smoking break, but don't light up. Or at least don't inhale.
We have a budding activist for a son (he's 12). We all stand at our desks at our house, but our son, of course, has to sit all day long at school. We're encouraging him to start campaigning for standing desks at his public school, for all children. Yeah, yeah, I know; it'd be a change, and change is difficult, but it seems that the benefits to our society would far outweigh the fixed costs and the socio-educational-cultural adjustments that would have to be made. My own lay estimate is that we'd eliminate most of the childhood type-2 diabetes and improve the classroom educational environment.
One of the issues with studies like this are they very specific and don't look at the associated environment(s). What I mean is most people who sit all day in a job can be pretty bored/stressed/hate their job kind of people. And since stress is also a contributor to some or all of the diseases ailments they mentioned who is to say that by sitting and working in a boring/stressful job isn't more of the factor than just sitting.
What am I supposed to do about this?
Question the studies and the motivation behind their being pushed so hard ;-)
Question why studies that reach contrary conclusions get no publicity.
Question why, even though there is absolutely zero evidence that stationary standing is better for you, standing desks are being pushed so hard.
Then go for a run.
This is why I got my department to buy me a GeekDesk a couple of years ago. I don't stand all day every day, but it lets me stand quite a lot of the time.
Since then, my chronic low-grade upper-back stiffness has decreased a lot—but I find that on weekends, when I tend to sit on the couch with my laptop a lot, it frequently comes back. My legs still sometimes get tired from standing for a few hours at a time, but overall, I think it was a really, really good decision.
If you can't afford a GeekDesk, and think you can handle losing the chair cold turkey, there are much cheaper standing desks that can get you off your butt and on your feet—for your health! :-)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Little cup is not a Burger King punishment. It is their management decision to limit the water cup size to make attempts to have soda in water cups impractical.
While stealing soda in Burger King sounds like a ridiculous idea, this option has been considered and addressed by reducing paper cup for water size.