Here is some bad news for you couch potatoes; health experts are now warning that sitting is dangerous for your health and can sometimes even be deadly. Unfortunately, they are also saying that it is still harmful, even if you also exercise regularly. It doesn’t seem to matter where the sitting occurs. What does matter is the amount of time that you spend sitting.
This new research is still in it’s early stages, but many studies indicate that people who spend most of their time sitting are more prone to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.
Elin Ekblom-Bak, from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, said that after sitting for 4 hours, the body begins to send out harmful signals. She also said that genes that monitor the amount of glucose and fat in the body begin to shut down.
A study that was published last year tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for 12 years and discovered that people who sat more tended to have a higher death risk, whether they exercised or not. A physical activity expert from the World Health Organization said that people who exercise every day but still spend a lot of time sitting, would benefit more if their exercise was spread out through out the day, instead of in one single time period
Peter Katzmarzyk, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, says that there isn’t enough evidence to determine how much sitting is bad for you, but it looks as though the more one can get up and break up this sedentary behavior, the better.
A U.S. survey in 2003 and 2004 revealed that Americans spend more than 50% of their time sitting.
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