Have you ever considered how long you spend sitting down each day? Eating, driving or commuting, working, goggling at a screen in all its many guises? If you did the maths, you would be alarmed, and rightly so; the average Westerner sits for 8.9 hours each day, and 70% of this sitting takes place at work.
After years of research, which had its origins in the 1950s when doctors compared the health of bus drivers and conductors, there is now compelling evidence that sitting down is strongly linked to the modern scourges of type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental health problems (1). In an analysis of 18 studies (2) involving 800,000 people tracked for 12 years, the most sedentary people compared to the least sedentary, were twice as likely to develop diabetes, almost twice as likely to die of heart attack, and 2.5 times as likely to have cardiovascular disease. In view of what’s known about the benefits of exercise for health, this may seem common sense, but there are two aspects of recent research that are both surprising and concerning:
Firstly, sitting itself is actively bad for you, it’s not just that it takes up time you could otherwise be more active. When a human being sits down, the activity of an enzyme in muscle that breaks down fat (Lipoprotein lipase) drops by 90%; calorie expenditure drops by 25%; after 90 minutes of sitting, metabolism shuts down; muscles become less sensitive to insulin, prompting the pancreas to produce more insulin, pushing the body towards a diabetic state. And that’s just the beginning.
Secondly, vigorous activity such as running or aerobics, does not offset the damage done by prolonged sitting.
Around the world, companies and even governments are taking steps to advise people on how to reduce the amount of time spent sitting. In January 2015, Public Health England, the executive agency of the Department of Health, in partnership with Active Working (a Community Interest Company), issued an expert statement, written by a group of international experts from the UK, Europe, USA and Australia, offering advice on how to break up sedentary activity in the workplace.
And it’s not rocket science. What the human body needs, in addition to that sweaty run or gym class, is constant low level activity, so low in fact that you may not consider it activity: standing up!
Taken from the ‘GetBritainStanding’ website (produced by the above partnership), are some simple and inexpensive changes that could be made immediately to reduce the risks from ‘sitting disease’ (yes, that’s really what people in the field call it):
- Stand and take a break from your computer every 30 minutes
- Stand during phone calls
- Use the stairs
- Have standing or walking meetings
- Eat your lunch away from your desk
- Walk to your colleague’s desk instead of phoning or emailing them
- Stand at the back of the room during presentations
If you are really convinced by the arguments, in addition to the ‘freebies’ above, there are numerous sit / stand desks on the market that enable you to move seamlessly from a sitting to a standing position without distracting you from your work. Indeed, in Scandinavia, some 90% of computer workers have sit / stand desks. Some of the trendiest offices brag a treadmill desk!
For businesses, the benefits of a healthier workforce are obvious. But there’s even more; according to GetBritainStanding, users of sit / stand workstations claim to be more alert, task-driven and positive; have higher energy levels; are more focussed and efficient in meetings.
If this idea is new to you, be prepared to hear more about it; The Get Britain Standing campaign is partnering with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to run a new event called On Your Feet Britain taking place on 24 April 2015. And if your appetite has been whetted, go to the GetBritainStanding website for more facts and figures.
So if you are about to meet with Space2BE any time soon… don’t be surprised if we suggest a ‘stand up’ or walking meeting!
(1) www.getbritainstanding.org
(2)Sedentary time in adults and the association with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death: systematic review and meta-analysis. Wilmot et al. Diabetologia November 2012, Volume 55, Issue 11, pp 2895-2905
