Remarkably it is a fact that smoking and sitting too much can do about the same damage to the body. The dangers of sitting hours at end should therefore not be underestimated. Sitting is definitely the new smoking. Are you someone who sits for long periods a day? Then the chances are that you are doing damage to your heart and blood vessels. Your metabolism is also harmed. Doing sports a few times a week does not really appear to help. That is what makes the comparison to smoking so striking. Because for smokers the only solution is to simply stop their bad habit. And so you should also stop with sitting for too long. Severe damage is prevented by intensively moving for one hour a day. But do not see that as a miracle cure, preventing is better than curing.
It appears that many young people are sitting hours at end a day. On average, in the Netherlands for instance, juniors are sitting for more than 10 hours a day. This is shown in a research by the RIVM (The State-institute for Health and Environment in the Netherlands). And then we are not even talking about the number of hours that they sleep. Teenagers are thus only moving around 6 hours a day! According to Wout van der Meulen, a sports doctor at the University of Utrecht, children are not receiving enough incentives to move and to play outside. Besides this, these numbers are similar for the rest of the population. People that sit a lot and that for instance also do their work whilst sitting down, are much more prone to contracting certain diseases and are also less likely to become old. Because a large percentage of the population sits hours at end a day, researchers are expecting a future in which many diseases that are related to an inactive lifestyle will be prevalent.
Depending of how long you are sitting on a chair or couch, a couple of things change in the body. Are you sitting for 2 hours on end a day? Be careful! because when you are sitting for longer than 2 hours on end your metabolism changes. The body makes more belly fat and you have a heightened chance on getting breast cancer, diabetes, osteoporoses and heart problems. Besides this, sitting for long periods is also associated with intestinal cancer. When you sit a lot you will not grow to be old and you will encounter many health problems. Not a nice look at the future, right? And that's not all! Read more about it below.
The arrival of television and the computer has brought many good things to our lives, but also lesser things. Watching television and sitting behind the computer can be really unhealthy if done for too long. You namely have a much higher risk to developing diabetes. Are you watching more than 2 hours of television a day? Then you have a 14 % higher chance of developing diabetes! Even if you do a lot of sport. Are you working for 2 hours a day on the computer? Then you have a 7% higher chance of developing diabetes.
These numbers are terrifying. It is thus not healthy at all to sit for long periods of time. Therefore its important to get up once in a while and start moving. Especially office people that are sitting at their desks the whole day are a risky group of people. We recommend them to, with some regularity (every hour preferably) to start moving. Take some paper work away, walk to the printer, get some water or do something else that makes you move for a little bit.
Movement keeps our bodies healthy. This is how we also remove bad toxins. If we sit the whole day or do our works whilst sitting, then these toxins stay in the body and can cause certain types of cancer.
We find it important to shortly talk about that sitting for long periods can not only lead to all kinds of (severe) bodily conditions, but it can also have an effect on the brain. The brain needs a good flow of blood. If this is not the case, then a shortage of oxygen and glucose can come into being. People that sit a lot (at least 6 hours) are often experiencing more stress and anxiety than people that sit for less than 3 hours a day.
Did you know that people that are sitting for about 7 hours a day and do not move a lot have a 50% higher chance of developing depressions? Of course it is the case that people with a depression often do not have the energy or motivation to start moving. But this can also increase the depressive feelings. Therefore sure that you always, even though you do not feel you have the energy for it, keep moving.
At work you can do much more work whilst standing than you might think. Take meetings for instance that are usually held sitting. They often take too long. Just start to have these meetings whilst standing. The advantage is that your blood sugar level stays stable and probably you will finish the agenda much sooner as well. The same goes when you are making a phone call. Exchange making phone calls whilst sitting to calling standing up. The big advantage of that is that you are much more focussed when you are making a call. During breaks at work you can go for a little stroll. On the internet you can find numerous recommendations that you can apply at work that you usually do sitting. If you are working behind a desk, you can also choose a desk which is higher, so that you can work behind the computer whilst standing up. Make sure that the desk is at the height of your elbows, so that you can allow for a natural body posture whilst working.
