Spending hours of your day sitting might be shortening your life, even if you’re getting the recommended amounts of daily exercise.
Many of us spend large chunks of our day sitting, especially when we’re at work. If we’re not glued to a computer screen or tethered to a phone, then we’re stuck in seats around tables in meetings. And that’s on top of 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.
“If you do 30 to 60 minutes a day of exercise, you tick the box of being active,” says Melbourne exercise researcher, Dr David Dunstan. “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.”
There’s evidence the typical office worker is sedentary for 75 per cent of their working day. From research conducted over the past decade, it’s become clear this sitting affects our body’s processing of fats and sugars in ways that increase our risk of heart disease and diabetes.
Read the whole article on the ABC Health & Wellbeing Section
SOURCE: ABC HEALTH & WELLBEING