New reports surfaced that Canadians are woefully inactive. With only 50% of Canadian adults meeting daily exercise requirements and only 12% of Canadian children, it would seem as though we are headed for trouble.
Recently, a team of researchers posed the question: Could too much sitting, not merely lack of exercise, be the real problem?
For many Canadians, a good portion of their day is spent sitting at a work/school desk, sitting in cars and then sitting in front of the TV or computer once they get home.
Not surprisingly, as people work longer hours and physical education programs in school have been reduced to the bare minimum, exercise has, unfortunately, taken a backseat to the stress and grind of daily life.
While it is well known that inactivity and lack of exercise in general have been linked to increased risk of heart disease, certain types of cancer, degenerative and orthopedic conditions, there may be more to the story than just lack of exercise.
Researchers found that people who spent a lot of time sitting at a desk or in front of a television were more likely to die than those who were only sedentary a few hours a day. This was true even when they accounted for how much actual exercise people got, as well as their weight and other measures of health.
Of more than 200,000 adults age 45 and older, people who reported sitting for at least 11 hours a day were 40 per cent more likely to die during the study than those who sat less than four hours daily.
In other words, people who sat for long periods of time were at extra risk, regardless of how much time they spent exercising, whether they were normal weight or overweight, whether they were healthy or had pre-existing medical conditions.
“When we give people messages about how much physical activity they should be doing, we also need to talk to them about reducing the amount of hours they spend sitting each day,” said Hidde van der Ploeg, the new study’s lead author from the University of Sydney.
