A new study debunks the theory that an hour of exercise a day is all you need to live a long life. Turns out, people who spend more time sitting during their leisure time have an increased risk of death, regardless of daily exercise.
American Cancer Society researchers tracked the activity levels and death rates in more than 123,000 healthy men and women for 13 years. They found women who spend over six hours a day sitting during leisure time (watching TV, playing games, surfing the web, reading) were 40 percent more likely to die sooner than women who spend less than three hours sitting. Men who spend more time sitting have a 20 percent increased risk of death. Essentially, those who sit less, live a longer life than those who don't.
Several factors come into play when figuring out “why” sitting may take years off your life.
The first may seem like common sense. The more time you spend sitting, the more likely you are to passively eat snacks or consume high calories drinks resulting in unhealthy weight gain. But this isn’t always the case. Sedentary obese and normal weight Americans had similar increased risk of death in the study.
Prolonged time sitting suppresses your immune system, which may increase the risk of cancer and other diseases. And your blood isn’t circulating as it should when you’re sedentary for long periods of time. When blood doesn’t flow thru your veins up to your heart, it could lead to dangerous blood clot. It also has metabolic consequences – increasing your resting blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Researchers say the metabolic effect may explain why the association was strongest for cardiovascular disease mortality in the study.
The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemology suggests, “public health guidelines should be refined to include reducing time spent sitting in addition to promoting physical activity.”
So as you keep your brain stimulated with your smart phones, video games and gadgets, wireless apps and paperless books – walk around or stand up while playing your favorite game. You may add years to your life.
V.Interesting!
I'm an IT guy – aging. I've been working with a raised work surface at my job for almost 2 years. I can't stand to sit anymore (pun not intended) as it causes much pain by the end of the day. I had the maintenance crew come in and raise one of my two platforms to a level where I can stand with my notebook pc and work. I keep a foot rest under that platform and simply switch feet back and forth – much like a foot rail in a bar. It takes some getting used to but after a couple of weeks you'll find standing is preferred. I can always move my notebook over to the other surface if I get tired of standing and sit for a little while. A perfect, apparently very healthy, work environment.
Jeez. Just the sort of thing a person who is wheelchair-bound wants to hear. How do you propose, good Dr; that a woman who is unable to stand, let alone walk, spend *any* time on her feet? Seems like all I'm reading these days is concerning good health is eat right and walk, walk, walk! But when it comes to those of us strapped into a wheelchair for the next 20-30 yrs of our life, *no one* has any answers or recommendations for us...
These studies are all basically useless. Live your life the way that gives you the most pleasure and you will have lived a good life no matter how long it is.
I dont think standing is going to be any better for you. I believe they assume since your not sitting your actually being active...yeeeesh....
Where's the citation? All we have is a journal name (with no volume and issue number), the author's affiliation (with no author name), and no title of the article. I'm on EBSCO now searching through the volumes. A professional article covering the academic press should absolutely provide information to easily track down the original source. This is SLOPPY!
I guess i should sell all my chairs and sofas. What about lying down? Does sleep count as sedentary? maybe i should stock up on red bull and sell my bed too. What about people in wheel chairs. should i sell my tv? I NEED ANSWERS
Not mentioned here is the massive amount of seat time children have in our schools.
Yeah, I wonder why they didn't mention that! 🙂
@ Mikey:
Yeah, but kids have much longer class times than they did 20-30 years ago, and not many walk/ride their bikes to school anymore. Busing kids all over a city also counts as "seat time". Plus, phys ed isn't as rigorous as it used to be. Combine that with being so drained when they get home from school, and who wouldn't want to sit around and play Xbox360?
Absolutely. Do not enjoy the forced sedentary position- speaks to the ethos of a bygone era. Much of my postgrad learning has occurred in an active setting- outside, or in a standing position. The nature of learning is shifting, it will be interesting, as in so many other things happening today, to see how long it takes the traditional model to catch up.
Oh, god, won't someone think of the children?!
So, ummm, doesn't "40 percent more likely to die sooner" equal 60 percent more likely to live longer?
no.. 60% live longer or live the same.
No, that's not what it means.
That's sure how I read it. Either the article is accidentally poorly worded or the study isn't as conclusive as were led to believe, leaving the author with the task of misleading us with true statements.
It means that if you pick some arbitrary age, whatever the odds are that a non-sitter would die before, the odd for the sitter are that plus 40% more likely.
NO! DUH! It's 40% ADDITIONAL risk!
"40 percent more likely to die sooner" than a certain cohort of the population (6 hrs women are 40% more likely to die by that age than <3 hrs women, but you have to specify an age. It isn't going to be 40 percent more likely by ANY age–age 15, 50, 65, 110. Of course, article doesn't say which age it is, so we're left with a headline that doesn't make any sense.
My message got cut off. Should read that saying "40 percent more likely to die sooner" than a certain cohort of the population doesn't make sense. You can pick an age, say, 65, and say that certain women are 40% more likely to die by that age than others, but you have to pick an age, otherwise it doesn't make sense.
no, it means 60% less likely to live longer.
"60 percent less likely to live longer" doesn't make any more sense mathematically than "40 percent more likely to die sooner." You can be 60 percent less likely to reach a certain age–which has to be specified–but not just 60 percent less likely to live longer than another group. "Less likely to live longer" and "more likely to die sooner" are just not actual mathematical/statistical concepts.
Perhaps the author, Danielle Dellorto can help us out here by explaining to us just what she means by "40 percent more likely to die sooner". It is rather cryptic.
Statistics literacy to the rescue for all the hacky sack majors out there! 40% more likely to die means this: If you pick two dead people at random, one a sitter, the other a stander, there is a 58.3% chance that the longer lived of the two was the stander. Conversely, there is a 41.7% chance that the longer lived of the two was the sitter (58.3/41.7 ~= 1.4). Hope that helped.
But the stats mean nothing unless we know how much of a difference that life expectancy is. meaning, am I dying 3 years earlier? 10? 20? if its just 3...eh, im not that worried. if it's 20...i'm worried.
Can someone at CNN please check for errors in grammar before publishing? "you're" ??? If not, hire me to do the job... jesus... Three days and each day I found a number of errors.
I agree, CNN consistently makes grammar and spelling mistakes as if its a 2 year old writing this stuff. Instead of having someone at CNN reading and filtering the comments, they should rather spend the time to have them proofread the damn articles!
I believe the many uses of "your" and the one use of "you're" in this article are grammatically correct.
The "you're" is used correctly in the article above. There are no your/you're substitutions above.
Sorry, what you're are you talking about? "isn't circulating as it should when you're [you are] sedentary for long periods of time is correct.
And Grammer Teacher's comments have several mistakes: Cnn as if its [instead of it's as in it is] a 2-year-old not [2 year old]. Instead of having someone at Cnn, it [not they] should spend time [delete rather].
Be very careful when you criticize.
The force is not strong in you, Vince.
Also, isn't the spelling in "Grammer Teacher" incorrect? I believe it should be "Grammar." I really hope you're not a real teacher pal.
How exactly is "you're" used incorrectly in this article? I think you may need to brush up on your English before offering your services as a proof reader.
Haven't they heard about spell check?
Seriously, since when did "thru" become acceptable spelling in a piece on the front page of the biggest news website in the world? This is hack journalism, at best. The credibility of this article, and indeed the entire website, is hereby compromised. With errors like these, I'd sooner believe a paper arguing the merits of bloodletting. I'm changing my home page back to the New York Times.
"Thru" is a perfectly acceptable (albeit informal) variant of "through" according to http://www.dictionary.com, Merriam Webster online dictionary, and other modernized grammar sources (I looked them up because I, too was skeptical at first). And since this is a BLOG, it is very appropriate. Before slamming the article, do some research for yourself. The writer obviously did. And Jaque, if you think anyone at CNN cares that you're changing your home page to newyorktimes.com then you have much bigger issues to deal with than the word "thru." I'm sure NYT will be happy to have their 10th reader this year, though.
I think all vince meant was that "you're" should not be used in the first place. It should be "you are" because "you're " is to familiar and makes cnn seem unprofessional. Correct me if i am wrong. Bash all you want. I am just trying to clear things up the best i can. I own a car and one day hope to own a helicopter. vrooooom. peace suckas
Jesus is spelled with a capital J.
Epidemology is spelled wrong. Epidemiology is correct.
What is wrong with you're? I didn't think ' thru' was correct,
shouldn't it be ' through'?
@Mr. Deltoid – The NY Times is third in total circulation in the US. If you bother to read it, you'll note the quality of writing and investigative journalism is far better than most other news sources. I, for one, have always appreciated the fact that the editors publish a "corrections" section each day; in which they note any reporting errors from previous editions. Every news source makes mistakes, the NYTimes is one of the few that will so openly admit to and correct those mistakes. If I want to know how Lindsay Lohan is doing in jail...I'll check CNN.com. If I want real news, with some measure of substance and journalistic integrity; I go to the NY Times. No offense to CNN; they just have a different target market.
"Mr. Deltoid"– Just because 'thru' is a real word that exists in the dictionary doesn't mean that it should be used in all settings. When McDonald's has a 'drive-thru' I am not particularly bothered by use of the more informal version. In a professional news article, it is unacceptable to use "thru" when the more appropriate "through" is available. In formal writing, you are not supposed to use abbreviations (unless, for example, a company's name is an abbreviation. Even then you are usually supposed to write out the full name at least once) and I believe this counts as an abbreviation. Even if you disagree, your argument of "OH WELL IT'S IN THE DICTIONARY!!!1!11" Doesn't make any sense. There are quite a number of words–(slang words, profane words, etc.) that are listed in the dictionary but should not be found in professional writing, such as news articles, barring a certain context that demands them.
Also, seeing "thru" as a sloppy typo when there have been a fair number of other typos/grammatical errors above it is a perfectly reasonable response. Get off your high horse and stop being a jerk.
I refudiate you!
you're is correct in this context. You are.....you're
And your blood isn’t circulating as it should when you’re sedentary for long periods of time
all usages of "your" and "you're" are correct grammar.
That's what I said! And "thru"??? Come on!
American Journal of Epidemology
Isn't it spelled Epidemiology?
IT is unlikely that any americans are doing any of the article editing, it's offshored and possibly even posted remotely. Most of print media on the web or otherwise works like that...in case you are wondering why -any major newpaper- has peculiar editing quality anymore.
As for the article, uh, sure right and on some nights the moon appears brighter, that about as useful.
Much thanks to all of you grammar specialists out there. The integrity and message was COMPLETELY and TOTALLY lost betwixt the spelling and grammer errors. I couldn't understand it one bit!!
Seriously folks, we don't live in a perfect editorial world, and occasional mispellings and missed apostrophes fall through the cracks now and again. I dont really think it's necessary to leave a plethora of comments pointing out such things debasing the author over this. Maybe you all should try to apply for a CNN editor job, and solve the problem, hmm?
Glad I just caught this, I was wandering around trying to figure out my 'Sudoku of the Day.' Ha ha ha ha!
I find this very interesting but after talking to my 86 year great grandmother, she knows this even before the studies suggested it. She is living proof, that if you stay busy, you stay alive.
is it bad that i was in my 8th hour of sitting and eating popcorn while i was reading this?
LOL....and what of those who have to sit for a living? Maybe programmers have to find a way to jog while working?
Heck no it doesn't matter. I assume you were sitting cross-legged those 8 hours of sitting and eating your popcorn mindfully with a clear and peaceful Zen mind!
🙂 only if the popcorn is heavily buttered.
Hay I'm paid to sit and operate... even at the moment.
Only in 2010 would this be considered some kind of health information breakthrough.
There didn't need to be a single dime spent for a study like this. If you lead a sedentary lifestyle, you're going to be unhealthy.
Period. And if you're unhealthy, you will die much sooner than someone who is, barring accidental deaths.
But look at our nation currently: Obesity is rampant, people are more sedentary than they've ever been. We make our livings by sitting on our butts all day. We don't exercise and eat fast food most of the time since mom isn't home to cook for anyone anymore.
We've brought a world of pain upon ourselves as Americans and it gets worse with ever passing year. Fast food, exposure to unnatural chemicals and food loaded with pesticides. Nobody gets enough sleep, everyone is on an antidepressant, work means sitting around for 8 hours and everyone is too tired to go to the gym afterward for some reason.
If this doesn't change, we won't be around much longer to fix this nation. It doesn't matter how good your health care is or how much access you have to it if you're insistent upon killing yourself slowly. The doctors can only do so much to keep us going. The rest is up to us.
Please, skinny people at my work sit around on their rears too. The point is, skinny fat or not in shape, is the same as obese sitting around.
Chris, thank you for your completely nonsensical, emotional rant that has absolutely no supporting evidence nor basis in reality. I hope you fade quickly from this earth. Thanks!
Most of what you say is correct, though some parents who stay at home serve fast food to their kids, so it's not an issue of "mothers," or whether or not they work. Yes, many people use antidepressants, antianxiolytics (not sure my spelling there and I"m fighting my OCD urge to look it up) and alcohol or other drugs to numb things, but the rest of what you say is right on. Your IQ points and consciousness are up there. As for one who responded negatively to you, there is recent research that people who don't know don't have the intelligence to know they don't know. In law school, when I thought an exam was tough and I figured I flunked, the "C" students thought it was easy, and then I would get "top paper." Yes, we are in trouble.
Glad I invested in my walkstation at work! I walk 8-10 hours a day now while on my computer instead of sitting on my butt. My doctor told me my back problems were from sitting at a desk for 30 years. Glad to have added benefits to my walking....as well as no back pain!
Eventually you will develop foot and leg problems. That is too much walking. Everything in balance.
wrong, what are you the walking police? animals and humans alike used to walk for the entire day which is 16 hours often back when they had to search for food to stay alive.. do some research and you will find there is not a limit to how much you can walk.. maybe strenuous exercise.. but walking is not strenuous and the body is designed for it, for long periods.
What is a walk station?
timc, the average life span of humans was much less back then.
Yes, since we have become more lazy and fat, our life spans have gone up quite a bit.
I also this this article is insensitive to wheelchair bound people – they are basically saying that those fit men playing basketball in thier wheelchairs are going to die young because even though they're working out they're sitting, how stupid!
So people who sit around all day rather than leading healthy, active lives don't live as long??? This is big time news, alert the internets.
THE INTERNETS HAS BEEN ALERTED! YOUR CONTRIBUTION IS VALUED!
So what kind of life expectancy do you think a person who's sat in a wheelchair for 23 years has. I wonder.
Well, if it's not motorized, I imagine that they get quite a bit of exersize. You have to really work to move those wheelchairs.
Oh, that's right they only studied "healthy" people.
@Cathy, most medical studies are performed on people of a certain type. It would be tough to validate results on exercise for people who walk vs. people in wheelchairs. This isn't discrimination, it's a simple experiment group model.
And people that don't have injuries that can't stand much.
Big fat Americans even try to find the absolute closest parking spot at every store. Great!! Their big butts often won't even fit into a seat on a plane. And how some of these people get their overblown guts under the steering wheel of a car is a mystery to me. Lose about a hundred pounds you porkers!
Laffing my As* off at your post!! Cool, I just lost 100 pounds!
just had some big fat European relatives visit for their free meal,its not only Americans that are over weight.
Just so you know, obesity is a world-wide epidemic. Check the WHO web site. The people of Polynesia are far fatter than Americans over all. Americans are the fattest in the developed world, but the Brits, Mexicans, Slovaks and Greeks are right behind us. I know they like to preach at Americans, but "We're not as fat as you" is not really a very good defense. They are rapidly catching up.
I also love when people go to work out at the gym but take the closest parking spot they can find. And if they can't find a legal one, they'll park illegally...they can work their butts off at the gym, but they can't walk from their car to the door and back!
Yankee Fan – I wont circle a parking lot for a good space, but I prefer to find one closer to the front when going to the gym for one reason – depending on the workout I do, sometimes it hurts or is hard to walk. Some of the times my legs are so quivery it's an issue to walk much, so I like to lessen how far I have to walk immediately after a workout. I don't really think this is a problem, although I'm sure some people do it out of laziness as you suggest.
Yes actually is was the WHO that mentioned somewhere that for the first time in human history there are more obese people on the planet than starving, it's certainly not popular to mention this. But then few believe the world is progressing despite it being right under their noses.
My mother exercised very little and sits most of the day. She will turn 90 in October. I wonder how many more years would have been added to her life if she had been more active?
friend, you have to be kidding.. your grandmother? thats ONE person, they did a study on over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND people.. get real with your sarcasm, one person is not evidence one way or another
My mother is turning 91 and has spent most of her life sitting. Her sisters - same story. My mother smoked filterless cigarettes, ate red meat about 5 times a week and weighed too much until very recently. She is mentally sharp as a tack but I consider hers a wasted life - no adventure, no fun, no friends, no participation in social organizaitons or charities. Perfect health, she even has all her teeth, but all she ever does is sit and watch TV A totally vicarious life. No kind of mother to me or grandmother to my kid at all. Oh well, the luck of the draw.
So if I put the TV on the ceiling and lie down instead, does that help?
Props for creativity
I am amazed that none of the commenters has blamed Obama for this yet. I, for one, view this news as further proof that George Bush doesn't care about black people.
I agree!
As I understood it even among those who exercise regularly and are not obese, the same statistic applies.
Yeah... Try sitting 9-11 hours a day, meetings scheduled during lunch, so no chance of exercising then, and I work for a health care organization... Go figure.
Talking more than an hour a day could reduce you life span by 50 years....
Depends on what you say and to who.
Yeah, live longer so you can stay stimulated with meaningless smart phones, video games and gadgets, wireless apps and paperless books. I think i'll stay seated.
Yeah, really - live longer WHY?
Blood doesn't flow "thru" veins, it flows "through". Who are you, an advertising agent for a fast food company?
"Thru," according to Merriam Webster's online dictionary, as well as http://www.dictionary.com is a variant of the word "through," and therefore is perfectly acceptable. Let me know if you need additional lessons in spelling and grammar.
Yeah, acceptable spelling for street signs.
Was this written by an eighth grader? Is this what passes for medical news at CNN?
"Prolonged time sitting suppresses your immune system, which may increase the risk of cancer and other diseases." Really? Perhaps we should prescribe long periods of sitting for organ transplant recipients, rather than costly immunosuppressant drugs. I challenge the author to present a single randomized controlled study that investigated the effects of sitting on immune system function.
"And your blood isn’t circulating as it should when you’re sedentary for long periods of time. When blood doesn’t flow thru your veins up to your heart, it could lead to dangerous blood clot." How is it that the blood isn't circulating as it should? Is the sitting individual still breathing? Are they maintaining their body temperature? Are they still metabolically active? If they're alive, the blood is flowing "as it should". If the blood isn't flowing "thru" the veins, where does the author propose it has gone?
It is possible to explain physiology in lay terms without oversimplification to the point of inaccuracy.
I know six IT workers who have suffered DVTs during the past three years. How many people suffer DVTs after long flights? Sitting is not good.
Abe: You are so confident that there is no physiologic explanation for a correlation that has just been proven. You scoff at the statement that slow flowing blood could increase the risk of cancer. Well let me explain it to you, although I already did elsewhere in this blog, your utter defiant arrogance tempts me to repeat myself. 1. when blood loses it's motion, especially in veins, which often have valves, it causes "platelet activation" which is an extremely complex cascade of chemical events involving numerous cell lines and cytokines as well as vascular permeability factors which are helpful in wound healing 2. the cytokines from platelets, most notably IL-2, IL-12 and adhesion molecules such as CD-40 (Avandia) are able to modulate the immune response to down regulate, or conversely, upregulate via low levels the important effector systems used in killing cancer. These systems are known as the TH-2 or TH-1 immune arms. 3. The relative proportions of these arms determine the cytotoxic strength necessary for the cancer killing function 4. Modern research on cancer therapy have tried immunization modalities attempting to enhance this but have failed because of the lack of "co-expressed" molecules necessary for this immune induction. 5. Yes, activated platelets when given in transfusion cause immunosuppression and promotion of the very cancer for which the platelets are given as treatment of (chemo causes thrombocytopenia). This is a tremendously unrecognized problem in platelet manufacturing, but could be used experimentally to treat graft rejecction. 6. In fact, it is very easy to do a literature search and find that many diseases (risk of stroke and MI, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, IBD) have as a presenting laboratory finding, circulating activated platelets (measured by CD antigen expression). This is NOT a routine laboratory test but if a manual differential is done on a CBC, you will see "platelet clumps" in many cases. SO THERE IS THE RESEARCH DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOU. FROM NOW ON YOU SHOULD PROBABLY HIT THE JOURNALS SINCE YOU ARE SO KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THE CURRENT STATE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH.
Man, I am soooo screwed! So much thinking that having a degree in accounting and allllll the sitting in front of a computer screen would lessen my lifespan. Crap... I should of picked another major! Oh well....
Silly. This is not the only factor which decreases life expectancy. Are you an angry person? Do you drive wrecklessly? Are you exposed to toxic chemicals? Infectious agents? Just count your blessings!!!! And get up and walk around every 30 minutes.
"When blood doesn’t flow thru your veins"
Thru??? Come on editors...
DEAR GOD, LOOKS LIKE WE'LL ALL BE DEAD BEFORE 2012 GETS TO HAPPEN
So what else is new? Duh!
I visited a physician at a medical clinic which is part of a large group health organization. Before my consultation with him, I overheard he and a colleague vehemently agree that the 'new money saving tactic' put forth by the administration/owners
was absurd. I questioned him about what I had overheard. He mentioned that all the physicians in this small clinic were now required to wear pedometers (for a designated amount of time) to see how many steps could be eliminated in their rounds. He said some physicians had to move/trade their offices a few feet down the hall after the pedometer results. So much for 'I like to move it move it...I like to move it move it...I like to move it...move it!!
Right! It's our philosophy that is killing us. We avoid stairs. We avoid bending over, making an "extra" trip down the hall, or an extra visit next door. We think economy as if we would melt to do something physical. We hire people do pull the weeds and scoops the snow. What we need to change is our thinking. When I shovel the garden, yes it's work, but I say to myself, "it's good for my heart that I shovel this dirt". And then, we wear shoes to work than no earthly soul could walk in. Those shoes cause more than bad feet, they cause bad health from inactivity. YAY, to the doctors at your clinic who saw the fatal flaw in the company productivity plan. They see the writing on the wall.
This is all so business can make you stand so they can save money. Next will be the 12 hour days 6 days a week. If exercise is so good, how come in the 1800s people didn't live extreme long lives? Clean air, unprocessed food, clean water, etc., and
PLENTY OF EXERCISE. How come fruit flies, when kept from flying as they normally do; DOUBLE THEIR LIFE SPAN.? Fruit flies are used by science, because they are basically LIKE US.
Hmmm......excellent points.
This article is atrocious. It was poorly written, spelled badly, punctuated badly and is laughably oversimplified.
CNN, you should be ashamed of yourself for publishing this tripe under your masthead – but not as ashamed as the so-called "medical senior producer" who wrote it. Is she 13? That would be her only excuse, and it wouldn't even be a good one. At 13 I was writing university level material. This woman is getting paid to write as part of her job and still can't manage to do it correctly.
This country is in SO much trouble.
I find it humorous when people act as if the country will fall apart if we don't get our spelling and grammar together. Its not as if humans started without language, let alone spelling, grammar, and punctuation.. The end is near. Not
Actually this article is, by modern standards, and by "blogging standards" (THIS IS A BLOG) written properly. You were writing "university level material" at 13? Sure you did, Shakespeare. You lie like a dead dog. And if you're so smart, what are you doing with your life besides slandering CNN employees? Why don't you become a journalist? I'll tell you why: because you can't. You sit behind the safety of internet anonymity and hurl childish insults. That sure takes a lot of backbone. This country is "in SO much trouble" because ignorant buffoons such as you have the freedom to waste the time of others by posting your inane comments on the internet.
As a foreign language teacher, I know that communication is the goal of speaking and that the world will not fall apart if a kid makes a grammatical or spelling error. I do, however, have to point out that our disdain for grammar and proper writing are troubling. It's not the bad grammer, per se, it's the lack of caring. People do not take time write anything well, much less edit what they have written. Language is like an ax. If we let the ax become dull, we will have to work twice as hard to achieve the same effect. While the country may not fall apart because of it, the culture will still suffer. Where are the Hemmingways of this generation, who revolutionize the art? They don't exist. Innovation in literature today means nothing more than proving that you can smut.
Oh who cares. No study can pull everyone of the population into the same sample to determine anything of value. I highly doubt that this study, while it may have some merit, is worthless. Look at history and people have been sitting for extended hours for thousands of years. This study is but one of thousands of possibilities in which there could be thousands of different possibilities affecting an outcome. If anyone believes this crap, then you need a life. What is old are these stupid studies coming out every week. It's junk science.
It really is not junk, and in fact people have NOT been sitting for thousands of years. Besides, thousands of years ago the average lifespan was what, 45 years tops? Come on people, it painfully obvious that sitting all day is bad for you, and if you don't believe it, then its probably because you ARE sitting all day and don't want to feel bad about it.
So does this mean that we can all tell our "bosses" that we can't just sit at our computers all day? And that we can sue them if they do not let us "up". Love new studies that give people more ammo for lawsuits !!!! Thank you ACS – there will be those who will use this to their advantage.
Heads up: don't sue your employer. You basically have no rights.
So since I am not suppose to sit longer than 3 hours, I should spend no more than 1 1/2 hours sleeping, (Assuming you split the difference in sleeping and sitting) Ohhhh wait... What was that you say? People who sleep less than 8 hours a day have a greater chance of dying young? You don't say eh? Well now that is a problem... Don't sit or lay for 3 hours max, but don't sleep less than 8 hours... So do we sleep standing up???? This has got to be the most stupidest thing CNN ever wrote and thats my opinion..
You think this article is stupid because you lack the ability to perform basic math (that I learned in kindergarten). Work 8 hours. Commute 2 hours. Sleep 8 hours. That is 18 hours, leaving 6 hours of leisure time. It is, as the article (that you did not read) states: LEISURE TIME. The point of the article is to tell you about how your decisions impact your health. You should expect your parents, your therapist, or your babysitter to map out your daily to-do list, not CNN.
Man you are a moron. Sleep and sitting are two totally different activities that the body responds to completely differently. Sleeping = restoration time, whereas sitting = being non productive time. Also, as the article states you're probably eating random crap while sitting, whereas last time I checked I was not munching candy bars in my sleep.
So it's ok if my idea of recreation is tweeting, making inane cell phone calls, texting my way down the street and watching movies on my smart phone, as long as I do it standing up?
A lot of you people did not read this article, but commented on it anyway. You state this is "no breaking news because we all know a sedentary lifestyle leads to a lower lifespan." But you are missing the entire point. The article states that EVEN IF YOU EXERCISE A LOT, YOU STILL ARE AT RISK IF YOU REMAIN SEATED DURING YOUR LEISURE TIME. Develop reading comprehension skills before wasting my time with your comments, please.
thank you
i'm always so amused at people who get irritated at other people's posts who think they're sooo much smarter than everyone else....
Just another propoganda bit to keep people away from the internet so that they will spend more money in going to library to reasd a book etc all of which puts money back into the pockets of Big Oil. Do not listen to those that say sitting is goingto cause you die earlier in life.
LOL....You're serious? Oh, my!
Who the heck wants to live longer anyway? I hate these kinds of studies...they are mostly baseless...2 years from now they will say that standing causes some other problem...about 5 years ago egg was bad for you. Then 4 years ago it was good...then they reversed it a few years back. Same thing with coffee...make up your mind already !
margarine, same thing. 20 years ago it was god's gift to the medical community for people with heart disease. now it's a transfat that ups your triglycerides. i don't believe any of these studies anymore.
This is another BS study that has no scientific merit to it. The study is flawed, if you stand and walk more they would say you wear your body out and die faster next. Mind you scientific studies in the past said we were never meant to walk up right cause our back was not designed to support it and why we hunch over in time... Food for thought!
Where is your evidence that the study is flawed?
Actually we hunch over time because of gravity pulling on our bones, just like your face gets droopy when you're older.. Not because its mother nature giving us a sign we should hunch over all the time
I'm in complete agreement with your comments. I could write a book as to the cause(s) of obesity in both adults and children, and yes, a sedentary life isn't the healthiest, but come-on, is the the best CNN (comical network nutjobs) have to offer? And this person's title is "Medical (cough, cough) Senior Producer?!
CNN, careful! No one will read your ads (revenue) if no one's sitting. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do-
encourage your readership to sit, read your site,and buy your ad stuff.
This kind of research is completely BS. Completely irresponsible and utterly clueless.
And you're basing that on the extensive research that YOU have done on the matter?
what a retarded article
This is a completely ridiculous, meaningless study. They interviewed people for 13 years, and enough of them died during that time to generate a trend worth publishing? No mention whether or not the people who spent more time sitting did so because of an extraordinarily hard life, were already obese, etc.
This "study" is trash.
This isn't a study, it's an article about a study. You want CNN to reproduce the methods and results of the academic paper on a pop-culture news site? 90% of the folks here would have their eyes glaze over...
All truckers/bus drivers/people in offices better change your jobs ASAP 🙂
Too true, if one starts dring a truck OTR and smoking at 21 it's unlikely they will make their sixtieth birthday, just the facts.
Hmmmmmmmm I think I need to stretch my legs. Later.....
What a bunch of baloney. I suppose the people that did this study were walking around during their research.
This article is completely worthless. What do they mean by "sooner"? Are we talking a month? 'Cause if it means a month, well, who gives a crap?! Now, if you tell me that by sitting more you'll die 9 years sooner, ok that's significant. WIthout that bit of information however, the article is useless as a piece of health advice.
I was going to say exactly the same thing. If it's only going to be a month, we might as well kick back and take it easy.
Great so I can earn my living sitting at a computer and desk for 8 hours a day or I can be healthy on unemployment. Nice options.
The more medical news I read, the more depressed I get. Much of the advice that comes down the pipe is inapplicable to the lifestyle that many of us have been living for most of our lives. This particular piece is an example of a behavior that I cannot possible change without going into an entire different field of work, as I currently sit at a desk in front of a computer for much of the day. My employer is unlikely to change the way that they operate in the near future, so, as it is, I am rather stuck in (forgive the pun). This piece follows on a spate of articles (in different mainstream publication) that I have recently read that address the hazards of certain behaviors, most of which are "uniquely" American. An example might be; "Why the French live longer and are happier" or "The key to a long life is an Asian diet and spiritual outlook", or "Dark winters are bad for your psychology". I am not questioning the validity nor the benefits of these studies or these behaviors, but rather how realistic they are for the lions share of the people who are exposed to this particular or to other general health advice columns. Perhaps it is a good reason to be depressed, but I would prefer some advice that I could really use.
Yeah- because it worked so well for our ancestors who farmed all day and died at 40
A good point, but in their case they died of overwork. When they went to sleep, they dreamed they were working.
There is too much talk of what constitutes healthy living. Do the best you can, stop over-analyzing and move on. Don't overthing everything!!!
Great! What the hell are those of who are stuck at a desk for 8 hours supposed to do?
I can't type meaningfully at a keyboard while I stand or walk away from my desk for much of the day.
Sue your boss when you have a heart attack.