Multiple studies show: a sedentary lifestyle is deadly

The British Journal of Sport Medicine has just published an editorial piece that reiterates the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle. It recommends that health educators and authorities change the way they talk about physical activity, putting more emphasis on the dangers of being sedentary for long stretches of time.

Editorial author Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences spoke in an AP news article discussing the editorial:

"After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said. She explained that genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down.

The AP piece further cited several previous studies including the Canadian study published in the May 2009 issue of the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise that found that regardless of the amount of exercise taken at other points during the day and their general fitness level, the mere act of sitting for long stretches had increased the risk of premature death by cardiovascular disease and the general mortality rate by 1.54%.  Lab results suggested those rates were attributed by changes in how the body dealt with lipids and glucose.

Recommendations include: breaking up how you get your daily exercise, including walking breaks during the day to normalize the body's hormonal levels and its ability to process the fats and sugars in the body.

If you are using a PC for long periods of time, you can download our (free) tool from NaturalHealthcare.ca that reminds you to take a break from the computer. The default is every 25 minutes, but you can change it to pop up less often, up to once an hour.  See the RSI Saver program on the downloads page here: http://naturalhealthcare.ca/downloads.phtml

You can also check out our workplace wellness challenges that help make physical activity top of mind for the duration of the challenge - to help make daily exercise a habit. It focuses on tracking blocks of exercise (at least 10 minutes a block) during the day to make getting the extra time in at the end of the day less daunting. Available as an online tracker, or dry-erase cards. http://wellergize.ca/products_workplace_wellness_challenges.phtml

Posted by: gisela on 2010-02-01 02:25:06

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