Get up for your heart health and move for your waistline
With more and more headlines warning that too much sitting wreaks havoc with our health and medical experts claiming that even regular exercise can’t reduce the damage done by spending most of the day on our rear-ends, the message to change our sedentary ways couldn’t be clearer. The trouble is, while the science behind the unhealthy consequences of spending hour after hour sitting behind a desk, in a car and in front of the television is unequivocal, the solution is still up for debate.
To be clear, nobody’s questioning the benefits that could be garnered by replacing time spent sitting with time spent exercising. But for most of us working up a sweat in the office isn’t a realistic solution. Despite the availability of treadmill desks and other products geared to getting the 9 to 5 crowd out of their chair, it’s doubtful that employers are ready to embrace a workplace that looks more like a gym than a place of business. And even if they did, there’s no guarantee that employees will abandon their comfy office chair in favour of a workstation that gets them up and moving. After all, it’s been a struggle getting Canadians to exercise on their own time so it’s doubtful that a campaign to move more at the office will be any more successful.
What then is the best way to fight back against the increased risk of heart disease, metabolic disorders and premature mortality associated with too much sitting? Most health experts advise breaking up long periods of sitting with standing, despite a lack of evidence proving it’s any more efective at improving health. After all, standing is still considered sedentary behaviour, which is believed to be the root cause of many of the health woes that plague today’s society.
In an efort to find out more about the “too much sitting” dilemma, an Australian research team took a look at the health consequences of replacing sitting with standing. They strapped activity monitors on 782 Australian adults 36 to 80 years old for seven days to determine how much of their day was spent sitting, standing, lying down and moving. They also measured their height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure and took a blood sample to analyze key metabolic markers like cholesterol, triglycerides (fats in the blood) and blood sugar.
According to data accumulated by the activity monitors the study subjects spent almost nine hours a day sitting, five hours standing, two hours walking and just over an hour a day in moderate to vigorous physical activity. As for how these habits afected health, their blood and body measurements ofered some interesting insights.
Every two hours a day spent standing rather than sitting improved health markers like blood glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides as did every two hours spent walking. But walking had the added bonus of reducing BMI (body mass index) and waist circumference. Neither standing nor walking had any impact on blood pressure or LDL cholesterol (the type that puts your heart at risk).
“This is one of the first studies to report on the associations of objectively measured standing with cardio-metabolic biomarkers. Standing comprised nearly one-third of waking hours and most of the waking hours that were not spent sitting,” said the study’s authors, who are from the University of Queensland, Australia.
The bottom line of these new findings is that standing deserves the attention it’s been getting. But it also sent another message — if you want to whittle away at your waistline and lose a few pounds, choose a treadmill desk over a standing desk.
“These findings provide important preliminary evidence that strategies to increase the amount of time spent standing or walking rather than sitting may benefit the heart and metabolism of many people,” said study’s lead author Genevieve Healy. “Get up for your heart health and move for your waistline.”
But that’s not all you should be doing to get your health in order. Try substituting some of those hours spent sitting and standing with real physical activity, the kind that makes your heart speed up and puts a sweaty sheen on your forehead. Good old-fashioned exercise still ofers the best bang for your health buck, so don’t think that moving from sitting to standing is a cure-all.
Keep in mind, too, that we still don’t know the exact mechanisms behind the unhealthy outcomes associated with sitting. And while there are several theories in the works, the lack of a definitive cause makes it harder to recommend a definitive solution. So while studies like the one presented by this team of Australian researchers adds to the bank of information about healthy work habits, there’s still a lot to learn.
“It is important to say that not all sitting is bad; but if people can incorporate alternatives to sitting wherever possible, it may benefit their heart and metabolic health, said Healy. “Our message is to Stand Up, Sit Less, Move More.”