The Danger with Sitting

It is clear that being inactive is detrimental to your health and can lead to many diseases including obesity, heart disease and diabetes, not to mention back pain and neck pain. But did you know that The American Cancer Society published an astounding report that confirms that sitting can be detrimental to your health and even cause early death!

The American Cancer Society studied over 120 000 participants who had no prior history of cancer, heart attack, stroke or lung disease over a 14 year period and found that particularly for women, there was a relationship between the time spent sitting and mortality. Women who sat more than six hours of the day were more than 35% likely to die during the course of the study than women who sat less than three hours per day. Men were almost 20% more likely to die. The relationship between sitting and mortality increased for those individuals who were not physically active!

The take home message it to get up and get moving, even if you do have a desk job. Get up every 15-20 minutes and stretch to get the body moving and blood flowing!