One of your favorite activities may actually be killing you.
Our entire modern world is constructed to keep you sitting down. When we drive, we sit. When we work at an office, we sit. When we watch TV, well, you get the picture.
And yet, a new study that’s running in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that this kind of sedentary behavior increases our chance of getting a disease or a condition that can kill us prematurely, even if we exercise. Prolonged sitting, meaning sitting 8-12 hours per day, increased the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 90%.
Canadian researchers from Toronto came to this conclusion after analyzing 47 studies of sedentary behavior. They adjusted their data to incorporate the amount someone exercises and found that the sitting we typically do in a day still outweighs the benefit we get from exercise. Of course, the more you exercise, the lower the impact of sedentary behavior.
So what can you do to reduce the time you spend engaged in an activity that is not good for you?
The study’s authors did make some simple suggestions to help you sit less. One is to just be aware of how much you are sitting. That way you can make a goal of reducing that number a little bit each week.
If you are at work, you could try a standing desk or make it a goal to stand up or walk around for a minute or three once every half an hour. If you watch TV at night, don’t zoom ahead during the commercials with your DVR. Instead walk around or at least stand up during the breaks in the show.
