Sitting is the new smoking

Health experts far and wide have issued a new warning, but what does ‘sitting is the new smoking’ really mean, and what can you do about it? We take a look at what the research says about the risks of spending too much time on your behind, and how you can combat them.

For most of us, day-to-day office life means spending long hours sitting at our desks, perhaps with periodic relocations to meeting rooms (more sitting down) or lunch in a cafe. Then there are those evenings spent on the couch in front of our various screens and devices.

Our bodies are designed for movement, and certainly our ancestors spent far more of their time in motion. These days, however, many of us are lucky to fit in a quick trip to the gym before or after office hours.

The risks

A meta-study at the University of Leicester, published in the journal Diabetologia^[1] analysed the results of 18 studies with almost 800,000 participants. It found that prolonged sitting doubled the risk of diabetes and heart disease, and that the risks weren’t eliminated for people who exercised regularly.

The man credited with coining the saying ‘sitting is the new smoking’ is Dr James A Levine. As co-director of the Mayo Clinic/Arizona State University Obesity Solutions initiative and the inventor of the treadmill desk, Levine has spent three decades studying the effects of being sedentary. He is also the author of Get Up! Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It.

In an article for the Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit health research organisation, Levine writes: “Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity and metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions that includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels. Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer.”^[2]

An Australian study published in 2012 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine^[3] looked at the effects of TV-watching while sitting. The study calculated that every hour of TV a person watches after age 25 cuts an estimated 22 minutes from their life span, whereas smokers shorten their lives by an estimated 11 minutes per cigarette.^[4]

The fix

The good news is that even leisurely movement or simply standing up more often may help. A perfect place to start changing your behaviour is to identify those times and places where you sit for prolonged periods of time, and see how you can incorporate more movement. These techniques may help you reduce your time spent sitting:

Stand rather than sit wherever possible. Try standing up while you’re talking on the phone, eating your lunch or doing domestic tasks such as folding laundry.

Add exercise to your commute. If you can, bike or walk to work, or at least get off the train or bus sooner, or park your car further from the office. Even standing, rather than sitting, on public transport can help.

Walk and talk. Rather than sitting around a meeting desk, see if you can persuade your colleagues to have walking meetings. The fresh air and sunshine might even boost your creative thinking!

Invest in a desk upgrade. Treadmill and sit-stand desks have been shown to be highly effective in reducing sedentary behaviour and its risks. Workers who used sit-stand desks were 78 per cent more likely to report a pain-free day than those who used regular workstations, according to a Stanford University back pain study.^[5]

Use your lunchtime differently. Instead of eating at your desk, take a walk in the park or enjoy a lunchtime yoga class.

Power in numbers. Having others to cheer you on and hold you accountable always helps when it comes to making lasting changes. Try encouraging your partner, friends, kids or workmates to share in your new goals, and join a corporate fitness program if one is available to you.

 

^[1]G Wilmot, CL Edwardson, FA Achana, et al. Sedentary time in adults and the association with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death: systematic review and meta-analysis. Diabetologia. 2012 Nov; Volume 55, Issue 11, pp 2895–2905.

^[2]JA Levine. What are the risks of sitting too much? Mayo Clinic online article

^[3]JL Veerman, GN Healy, LJ Cobiac, et al. Television viewing time and reduced life expectancy: a life table analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2012 Oct; 46(13):927–30.

^[4]M Shaw, R Mitchell, D Dorling. Time for a smoke? One cigarette reduces your life by 11 minutes. BMJ. 2000 Jan 1; 320(7226): 53.

^[5]GT Ognibene, W Torres, R von Eyben, KC Horst. Impact of a Sit-Stand Workstation on Chronic Low Back Pain. Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine. 2016 Mar; Volume 58, Issue 3.