I’ve got some important news. Are you sitting down? Well, then you’d better stand up.
Because sitting is killing you.
Well, that’s what some are claiming anyway. According to this argument, exercising folks will be just as corpulent as those who don’t if they spend at least three hours a day on their bums in the rest of their lives. I have to say this scaremongering pisses me off. Of course, if you run 5 kilometres a day and another person doesn’t, you are not going to be “just as fat.”
Still, there could be something to this. I often work sitting from 7:30 am to late at night. Should I get myself a standing or walking desk?
What the experts say
“This research has mainly been done with animals, but when you sit for four to six hours, the enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (which sucks fat out of your blood and helps you take it up into your muscles) shuts down. The amount of fat in the blood goes up, and good cholesterol goes down. And the glucose transport protein that takes sugar out of your blood shuts off if you’re not using your muscles. This all happens quickly, after just a few hours of sitting. A large 12-year study found that people were more likely to die during the follow-up if they spent most of the day sitting, regardless of how much exercise they got. It’s starting to be a consistent finding.”
TRAVIS SAUNDERS, certified exercise physiologist and PhD candidate in the school of human kinetics at the University of Ottawa
“We don’t yet fully understand the biology that explains the association between sitting and premature death. There is evidence of physiologic changes, but it could also be that the more you sit, the less total energy you burn. While a treadmill desk isn’t something everyone can get, there are simple things you can do. Take a two- to three-minute break to stretch every hour walk to co-workers’ desks instead of calling or emailing them take the stairs. I even sit on an exercise balance ball at my desk (so I can’t slouch, and sit more actively). Our study shows that being active and sitting a lot (active couch potatoes) is associated with higher risk compared to being active and sitting less, but again, it’s far worse to be both inactive and to sit a lot.”
ALPA PATEL, researcher, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia
“The human being was designed to be an in-motion entity, and over the last 200 years humans have been squished into the chair. Our most frequently adopted recommendation is for walking meetings. The U of T found that walking meetings are generally 10 minutes shorter than regular ones. It’s great to listen to music, even better to get headphones and take a walk. People make standing desks from cardboard boxes it takes minimal ingenuity. I bought a $250 second-hand treadmill, a $50 shelving unit, took out the bottom two shelves and had a walking desk. This burns calories, increases your attention level and helps avoid the afternoon dip. We’re not recommending you do everything walking: the body is also meant to rest.”
JAMES LEVINE, MD, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
“If you do sit, there are huge advantages to sitting a little higher than a normal chair – such as on a stool – because when your knees are below your hips, it encourages a natural upward flow of your spine. A direction people can give themselves is ‘I’m not tensing my neck as I type or look at the screen. I’m not tensing my shoulders.’ If you tense your neck, you interfere with the delicate balance of your head on your spine and exert downward pressure every part of you gets a downward pull. This restricts breathing. How you manage the head-neck relationship has gigantic implications for everything else.”
ROBERT RICKOVER, Alexander Technique teacher, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Toronto
