Sitting is the new smoking

Given that life is hazardous to your health, and that we all have a 100 percent chance of dying (yes, I’m sorry, it’s true!), it may come as no surprise that an everyday, normal, seemingly innocuous activity is turning out to be super-bad for us.

Yep. I’m taking about sitting.

We now sit for more than half of our waking hours – many of us for significantly more than that. I’m here to tell you (and by “here” I mean sitting at my favorite coffee hang-out with my laptop) that a growing body of research shows that people who spend many hours of the day glued to a seat die at an earlier age than those who sit less—even if those sitters exercise. (Back to that last bomb in a moment…)

A recent meta-analysis of the results of 18 studies (including close to 800,000 participants) found that those who spent the most time sitting increased their risks of diabetes (112%), cardiovascular diseases (147%), death from cardiovascular causes (90%) and death from all causes (49%) compared to those who sat fewer hours. In a 12-year study of more than 17,000 Canadians, researchers found that the more time people spent sitting, the earlier they died—regardless of age, body weight, or how much they exercised. As if that’s not enough, the American Institute for Cancer Research now links prolonged sitting with increased risk of both breast and colon cancers

Sitting apparently suppresses the production of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, which is essential for turning bad cholesterol into good. It also damps down the expression of a key gene that helps prevent blood clotting and inflammation. Sitting can also lead to insulin resistance and trouble metabolizing sugar.

But, wait…what about those of us who exercise every day, who follow – exceed! – the guidelines for physical activity. Surely this dire research does not pertain to us (and by “us,” I mean me.)

Sorry.

A consistent body of emerging research suggests that committed gym- and trail-friendly exercisers who otherwise sit most the day may face the same health risks as their completely inactive counterparts. It’s a bit like smoking, explained one of the Canadian researchers involved in several of these studies. “Smoking is bad for you even if you get lots of exercise. So is sitting too much.”

And guess what? Outside of regularly scheduled exercise sessions, it turns out that active people sit just as much as their couch-potato peers. In fact, regular exercisers may make less of an effort to stay active outside their designated workout time. (One study found that exercisers are about 30% less active on designated exercise days than on non-exercise days.) Yikes.

What to do? Uh…sit less.

How about standing (as I am now doing, with my laptop on the kitchen counter) instead of sitting when you go online? Standing desks (not to mention treadmill desks) are all the rage now. This not-terribly-attractive furniture may have started out as a fad. Consider it a health and fitness product. Maybe even necessity. How about converting some TV-watching couch potato time into stand and stretch time? Suppose, when you have to sit, you take a 2-3 minute active break every hour?

Join me.