For office workers who spend their days working on a computer at a traditional desk, it is fairly old news by now that the medical profession considers sitting for hours a health hazard akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. In fact, a number of studies have found that sitting increases risk of death by all causes even if you have a fairly active workout schedule outside the office. So the question becomes: what can you do about it?
Few of us have stand-up desks, which is the ideal solution, provided you do not stand all day without taking a break. For those who must sit, an intriguing insight into a possible remedy was included in a study published recently in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It looked at 12,778 women in the UK who were followed for 12 years.
Like previous studies, it found that sitting was associated with a 43 per cent increase in the risk of all-cause mortality, regardless of age. But there was a puzzling group that was not affected by the time spent in their chairs: for those women who sat all day but also fidgeted a lot, the risk of death actually declined.