I don’t like to write blogs. I usually have a hard time coming up with something interesting to talk about that incorporates my work place and my position – production manager. However, after listening to a story on NPR (Yes! I listen to NPR) a few weeks ago, I was moved to write a blog for the Bouvier Kelly website.
Sitting is bad. Rather, sitting for hours at a computer, in a car, on a couch, is bad for you, even deadly. It doesn’t even matter if you work out everyday before and after work. Excessive sitting, which most of us do these days, increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, a variety of cancers, and an early death. (Katzmarzyk, P. T. et al. 2009. “Sitting time and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.”)
In a study published last year that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for 12 years, researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk, independently of whether or not they exercised. (Copyright 2010, The Associated Press)
Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked. Insulin effectiveness drops within a single day, and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. So does the risk of being obese. The enzymes responsible for breaking down lipids and triglycerides — (for “vacuuming up fat out of the bloodstream,”) plunge, which in turn causes the levels of good HDL cholesterol to fall. (Marc Hamilton, an inactivity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center).
Over a lifetime, the unhealthful effects of sitting add up. Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society, tracked the health of 123,000 Americans between 1992 and 2006. The men in the study who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was about 20 percent higher than the men who sat for three hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher. Patel estimates that on average, people who sit too much shave a few years off of their lives.
Experts suggest walking, even a few minutes, 4 times a day during an 8 hour day. This will not only improve your health, but also your mood and productivity.
The following You Tube video was cleverly developed by Herman Miller, designer and developer of really cool furniture for all environments, to inspire people to move, walk, think, and stress less. Enjoy! Then get off your #@*&%!
