Dear George,
Once people
reach middle age, they start to pay more attention to good health
practices. I’m afraid I’ve gotten
too complacent lately though. I
cut down on sweets; lost some weight; am careful about eggs and trans-fats; eat
lots of high-fiber cereal and Healthy Choice frozen entrees; take the dogs for
long walks (when they’re willing), etc.
Now I find out all this may be for nought. Thanks to a barrage of media information, it appears that
the newest threat to health and longetivity is (believe it or not) …
SITTING!
That’s a
total shock. I sit all the
time. At the computer the most,
but also when eating, watching TV, at the movies, reading the paper, doing
Sudoku, putting on my shoes, etc.
I even sit on the strength machines when doing my workout at the
gym. It turns out that the
experts have now concluded that sitting is just as powerfully associated with
death and deterioration as are, for example, smoking or obesity. Here’s USA Today’s summary: “If most people spent less
than three hours a day sitting, it would add two years to the average life
expectancy in this country. And if they cut the time they spent on the couch
watching TV to less than two hours a day, it would add about 1.4 [additional]
years to overall life expectancy…”
(1)
My first
reaction was that they’d gotten confused.
That it’s not sitting that’s to blame, but rather that physical activity
promotes health and well-being.
People who sit a lot don’t exercise, and consequently they don’t live as
long. But, surprisingly, that’s
not correct. The most recent
research – a study of death rates in a population of over 222,000 Australian
adults (2) – found that sitting was associated with fatal outcomes regardless
of one’s level of exercise. People who sit for more than eight
hours a day have a 15% greater risk of dying than those who sit for less than
four hours a day, and those who sit for eleven or more hours a day die 40% more
often. This sturdy connection
between sitting and death holds for people who do no exercise, for people who
do moderate exercise, and for people who do lots of exercise. Basically, the implication is that
sitting causes death, regardless of one’s exercise habits. Even worse, an hour a day at the gym
does nothing to counter the harmful effects of sitting around the rest of the
time. As one expert at the Mayo
Clinic (3) put it, “The human being is designed to move … If you stop your
body, idle it – which sitting is – it crumbles on every level.” (Actually I just felt some inner
crumbling as I was typing this very sentence.)
So what are
we supposed to do now? Quitting
smoking was hard enough, but cutting down on sitting by sixty percent or more
seems totally unworkable. And I
don’t think they’re just talking about standing up more. Hanging out on the street corner
doesn’t increase your life expectancy.
They want us walking, jogging, running, doing push-ups. Assuming one sleeps about eight hours a
night, that leaves sixteen waking hours per day, only four of which should be
devoted to sitting. Twelve hours a
day is a huge amount of time to spend walking and jogging. I can barely force the dogs to go
walking for one hour a day – there’s no way they will shift to eight or nine
hours. In fact, if I personally
have to spend 12 hours walking every day, I’m not even sure I want to live that
long.
One excellent
tip that I did run across was to replace your chairs with therapy balls (since
these require constant muscle movement to maintain your balance). Katja recently redecorated our living
room with fancy new leather chairs.
They are very comfortable, but now that I know they’re life-threatening,
I avoid them as much as possible.
Despite the financial costs of redecorating one more time, I think
brightly colored therapy balls would look nice in our living room. I’ll keep everyone informed if we find
some. In the meantime, whatever
you do, keep moving.
Love,
Dave
SOURCES:
(1) “Sitting less could
extend your life” (http://news.cincinnati.com/usatoday/article/56117870, July 10, 2012)
(2) “Sitting Time and All-Cause Mortality
Risk in 222 497 Australian Adults.
By H. P. van der Ploeg et al., Arch. Intrn. Med., 2012.
(http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1108810)
(3) “Are You Sitting Yourself to Death?” (http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2012/05/02/are-you-sitting-yourself-to-death)
G-mail Comments
-Jennifer M
(7-18): haha. I sat while
reading this. I think I died a little bit, just like you did when you
wrote it. :-)
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