Sitting Will Kill You

Miiimii

Sitting is slowly but surely killing us just about scared every cubicle monkey and their bosses straight out of their desk chairs.

Sitting is not only making us fat, lazy, and weak (all bummers) — it's shaving precious years off of our desk-bound lifespans: men who sit six hours a day are 20 percent more likely to die than men who sit three hours a day and women who sit six hours a day are 40 percent more likely to die.

Now If that didn't compel you to jump to your feet, here's a pretty menacing red and black chart by the team at MedicalBillingandCoding.org that will make even the hair on your head stand on its tippy toes.

Link to original article and bigger infographic: http://www.businessinsider.com/more-terrifying-facts-thats-sitting-kills-you-2011-5

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/more-terrifying-facts-thats-sitting-kills-you-2011-5#ixzz2JYAgweMg

Mistyblu08

wow- yup thats scary! I have a standing desk so I try to stand as much as I can and stretch - would love to get a treadmill desk though:)

Zylahe

umm so if i stand up I will never die??
that seems wrong somehow

BerryH

Thanks for this terrifying article!

One of the things I love about my FitBit is it encourages me to be more active during the day, not just through formal exercise - getting up every hour to get water, running up to the toilet in the top floor, walking to the train station rather than getting on the Tube and just pottering round the house doing chores during ad breaks.

It's even beneficial to be really inefficient - I now go up and down stairs three times to take out my rubbish, recycling and food waste separately rather than doing it all at once!

Hbazzell

My shifts are 13 hours at a desk. I cant leave my desk but for very small incrememnts because peoples live depend on me listening to the radios. It suuuuucks.

JABGoochie

hence why i try and get out for a 15 min mid morning walk round the block and a 30 min walk at lunch time
i hate my sitting job!

suewestcountry

I get up and walk around every hour or so at work but to say sitting down will kill you is a silly and ridiculous statement to make

Dawid83

umm so if i stand up I will never die??
that seems wrong somehow

Yaah I also felt the need to point out the obvious.....We're all gonna die, those of us in the seated position will just have less strain doing so

HardRockCamaro

The only health thing I find scary is MedicalBillingAndCoding.
Specifically the billing part... :P

I almost had a heart attack when I got the bill from a Miami hospital for 5mins of a doctors time to confirm I had chipped a tooth and write me a prescription for pain killers!

dad106

Pretty sure sitting along won't kill you

It's what you eat while sitting that will do you in.

mzjessicab

Interesting and scary.. I will share with all of my friends. As a therapist, this is wehat I do most of the day. I take stairs (Don't trust the elevator) and make frequent trips around the building....

chivalryder

The only health thing I find scary is MedicalBillingAndCoding.
Specifically the billing part... :P

I almost had a heart attack when I got the bill from a Miami hospital for 5mins of a doctors time to confirm I had chipped a tooth and write me a prescription for pain killers!

You should move to Canada.

Synapze

For the first 20 years of my working life I've worked extremely hard climbing the ladder to get a good paying cushy job.

Now all i want to do is climb back down the ladder and get back to what i was doing 20 years ago

BerryH

umm so if i stand up I will never die??

Yes, it's been scientifically proven that no-one ever dies standing up.

MaraDiaz

Not sure I'm buying this scare study. Did they control for things like indoor air pollution (because sitters work inside and standers are more likely to be either outdoors or in a warehouse with different ventilation and different pollutants)? Also did they control for outdoor air pollution (since sitters have traditionally been city folk, though that has changed of late)?

What about differences in diet between those with active jobs and those with less demanding sit down jobs? Maybe active people are forced to eat better in order to function.

skinnyinnotime

Hmm, so a person that has a desk job sitting down upto 8 hrs a day but lives an active lifestyle outside those hours will die sooner than someone that stands alot everyday, eats poorly and doesn't work out?

HardRockCamaro

The only health thing I find scary is MedicalBillingAndCoding.
Specifically the billing part... :P

I almost had a heart attack when I got the bill from a Miami hospital for 5mins of a doctors time to confirm I had chipped a tooth and write me a prescription for pain killers!

You should move to Canada.

Is it even more there?!

In the UK it's free (well, it comes out if your taxes which for me is around $300 per month which includes health care and pension).
And yes I get treated for anything and everything, pre existing, long term, etc etc.

But sorry, don't want to make this a political thread, if you're happy with it it doesn't matter what I think as I don't live there.
It just amazed me I had to find $650 or more for that.
And pay $112 for 12 pills in Walmart.

Not saying its wrong, just not what I'm used to.


Would have been handy if I'd been sitting when they have me the bill actually, lol!

delonda1

very compelling article. I believe that its prob true. jobs are more sedentary and diets downhill

notthatthis

Not sure I'm buying this scare study. Did they control for things like indoor air pollution (because sitters work inside and standers are more likely to be either outdoors or in a warehouse with different ventilation and different pollutants)? Also did they control for outdoor air pollution (since sitters have traditionally been city folk, though that has changed of late)?

What about differences in diet between those with active jobs and those with less demanding sit down jobs? Maybe active people are forced to eat better in order to function.

Perhaps this piece is more enlightening for you to handle, not a scare study just observable behaviours. http://www.thenutritionexperts.com/2006/01/fidgeting-helps-you-lose-weight-burn-calories/ - called NEAT non-exercise activity thermogenesis lots of scholarly articles for review.

MaraDiaz

The only health thing I find scary is MedicalBillingAndCoding.
Specifically the billing part... :P

I almost had a heart attack when I got the bill from a Miami hospital for 5mins of a doctors time to confirm I had chipped a tooth and write me a prescription for pain killers!

You should move to Canada.

Canada doesn't want us. Pretty soon you guys will need to put up a fence to keep us out, though.

geebusuk

What a terrible piece of propaganda.

Correlation or causation?

They only seem to have the first.

It does cite references - unfortunately I'm too lazy ( :P ) to type them in - but most of them seem to be blogs and news sites, not medical studies, which is what I'd expect to see.
So often the medical studies are questionable - but when you get the information third hand via 'opinion', it's going to be even worse!

Sitting won't make you fat.
As we all know - sitting, but eating enough food to feed a professional athlete WILL make you fat.
But then being a professional athlete and eating the right amount of food for someone sitting all day will make them overly thin and ill too.

I've been pretty fit while working in an office job and spending most of the time at home sat at the same computer - because I also went to the gym regularly and was out racing motorbikes or mountainbikes at the weekends.

Had someone criticise the 'irony' of that lifestyle when on a paragliding intro day. The couple explained how 'the outdoors was free' etc.
I was the only one that day to get a decent flight because I could run the fastest and hardest thanks to my training at the gym.