Sitting is the new Smoking

How is sitting making you sick?

Many of us spend large portions of our day sitting, especially at work. Meetings, working at computers and then the hours we spend sitting in cars, buses or trains getting to and from work.

All this sitting seems to increase your risk of death from heart disease and other causes, research has found. And surprisingly, this happens even if you exercise regularly.

Dr David Dunstan(Melbourne exercise researcher) discusses on the ABC that if you exercise for  30 to 60 minutes a day you are considered active you tick the box of being active, but then you potentially have 15 or so hours a day when you’re not sleeping and not exercising that you could be spending predominantly sitting.

Fourteen million Australians are currently overweight or obese. The Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute has found that if weight gain continues at current levels, by 2025, close to 80 per cent of all Australian adults and a third of all children will be overweight or obese.

The Monash Obesity and Diabetes Institute also found that obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia, and has become the single biggest threat to public health in Australia.

And exercising every day won’t necessarily undo this damage. In fact, excessive sitting might undo the benefits of our daily exercise.

Loungeroom to workplace

Earlier in the year, the issue had some publicity with the release of a study, by Dunstan and others. The researchers linked four or more hours a day of television watching with an 80 per cent increased risk of death from heart disease, and a 46 per cent increased risk of death from all causes. That’s compared to people who spent less than two hours a day in front of the box.

But it’s the fact we watch TV while sitting or lying still that’s the problem, rather than TV per se, Dunstan says. This clearly has implications for the highly sedentary workplace environment, something health authorities and employers in Australia are only just starting to come to terms with.

The key is to avoid sitting as much as possible or at least break up your sitting time – even if only by standing, which uses more muscles than sitting. (This is not mentioned in the current national exercise guidelines but Dunstan and others believe they need to change.)

In Scandinavia, height-adjustable desks, which allow you to shift from working in a sitting to standing position at the press of a button, are becoming common. But the demand in Australia so far is low, which affects prices and availability.

“Some are as cheap as $500 but most are around $1000 to $1500,” says Dunstan, who has a made his own homespun alternative – a wooden box which serves as a laptop pedestal for when he wants to work standing up at his desk.

“I don’t think we’re at the point yet where we can say exactly how long we can safely sit… The broadest recommendation we can make is just to avoid prolonged sitting; stand up and move about more often.”

What you can do?

Motivate your work mates to stretch! Download the eBook above to put posters around as even little activities like getting up to make a cup of tea can make a difference.

Dunstan reports that people who break up their sedentary time throughout the day, regardless of their total sedentary time, have a better health profile, he says it all comes down to moving the muscles.

This means not sitting on public transport, and standing or moving around as much as possible while taking phone calls and during meetings.

Ultimately, changes in office design that encourage people to be less sedentary: centralised mail collection points, standing “hot desks” for internet browsing, lunch rooms with benches at standing height, and reading rooms with exercise bikes.

But you can try smaller measures – both at work and at home, such as:

• In a meeting, tell people at the start that they are welcome to get up and move around
• Having a glass for water on your desk instead of a bottle so you have to get up to refill your glass
• Standing when you use your phone (or use a cordless handset or headset so you can move around even more)
• Moving your rubbish bin/printer further away from your desk so you need to get off your chair to access them
• Taking the stairs instead of the lifts between floors
• Walking to a colleague to talk to them instead of sending an email
• Getting up to move around for few minutes or so every hour
• Doing household chores like ironing or folding the washing while watching TV
• Standing to watch children’s sporting activities.

If you are interested in purchasing a sit-stand desk, Benefit Corporate Health has a recommended retailer who has electronic desks in different colours for reasonable prices $800-1200.

Please contact us by phone: 0410 866 694 or email: info@benefitcorporatehealth.com.au

APA-Australia’s Biggest Killer

ABC- Sitting at Work is the Hazard