We Should Get Up More

The amount of time that most of us spend sitting has increased substantially in recent decades, especially as computers and deskbound activities have come to dominate the workplace. According to one telling recent study, the average American sits for at least eight hours a day.

Such prolonged sedentariness may have health consequences, additional research shows. A study of almost 2,000 older adults published in August, for instance, found that those who spent the most hours seated every day had a greater risk of high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, a poor cholesterol profile and body-wide inflammation than those who sat the least, no matter how much either group exercised (which, generally, was not much).

I sit at a desk working for more than 10 hours a day, and I’ve always convinced myself that going running in the morning makes up for it in some way. According to a study reported in the Times’s Well blog, it may not be doing anything to counteract all that sitting — a person training for the marathon can also be a couch potato.

In effect, the data showed that “time spent exercising does not supplant time spent sitting,” said Harold Kohl, a professor of epidemiology and kinesiology at the University of Texas and senior author of the study.

I’m going to make more of an effort to get up from my desk — maybe go out for a 2:16 p.m. coffee, or stretch by the windows.

Photo: Simon Gotz

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