Medical experts are starting to refer to long periods of inactivity and its alarming negative health consequences as “sitting disease.” In 2011, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention conducted a study that linked reduced sitting time to improvements in worker’s health. Similarly, a study in 2010 from the American Cancer Society published in the American Journal of Epidemiology demonstrated that sitting alone was associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity.  Evidence based literature supports that a sedentary lifestyle, including long periods of inactivity, increases one’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity. On the contrary, standing increases energy, increases calorie expenditure, tones muscles, improves posture and increases blood flow.

So what can we do in the workplace to prevent “sitting disease?”

• Make time to stretch at your desk throughout the day
• Grab a walking partner and walk on your scheduled work breaks
• Take a call standing up
• Lead a meeting standing up
• Limit your television watching after work and engage in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity 5 days a week.

On average we sit too much every day, so let’s STAND together and fight against “sitting disease!

To learn more, visit the links below:

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/172/4/419.abstract

http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2012/11_0323.htm?s_cid=pcd9e154_x