Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135575490/sitting-all-day-worse-for-you-than-you-might-think

by matth • 15 years ago

146 79 15 years ago

andrewvc• 15 years ago

Maybe this has no basis in reality, but one reason I stopped cycling as a primary form of cardio ( I run now ) is I just felt wrong moving from sitting at a computer to sitting on a bike.

kaens• 15 years ago

I thought you weren't supposed to really "sit" most of the time on a bike -- mostly more of a crouch type of thing.

beaumartinez• 15 years ago

So don't sit on your saddle—take it off. (Bonus reason: saddles {with a nose} also cause erectile dysfunction; I don't have any sources at hand but I'm sure if you search you will find).

mjallday• 15 years ago

It appears you're onto something with the erectile dysfunction. Apparently however, it's not that common and you can get seats that minimise the issue.

http://bicyclehabitat.com/articles/saddle-seats-and-erectile... http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/cyclingworkouts/a/BikingI... http://www.webmd.com/erectile-dysfunction/news/20050825/stud...

rbxbx• 15 years ago

Previous HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1834671

ps: standing desk :)

shii• 15 years ago

Also see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1311857

lpolovets2• 15 years ago

I am not going to disagree with the article or dispute that sitting all day is not as healthy as occasionally moving around, but does anyone else feel like this is the latest "health scare" meme? It reminds me of how leg embolisms on long flights were the focus of attention a few years ago. (i.e. completely absent from the news at first, then an overabundance of stories once a single scientific study is published.)

de90• 15 years ago

No doubt it is. I think it's just a problem with us understanding more. There is always going to be, taking to much of something, too little of something else, doing to much of x, doing to little of x.

Things that are good for us are bad in large amounts (vitamins), and things that are bad can be used for 'good' (botox).

Find what works for you, and makes you feel how you want, and stick with it. There will never be better advice since everyone is different. But where is the scare in that? :)

lpolovets2• 15 years ago

I think the scare is the explicit statement that exercising is not enough. If that is the case, then I will make adjustments to my work/sitting habits; if it's not the case, I'm pretty happy with my current status quo of sitting most of the day and then doing a challenging workout at night.

However, all of these recent sitting news articles seem to be based on the same study. Perhaps the study is flawless, or perhaps the data collection was flawed, or the results can't be replicated, or something else went wrong. In that case, the news stories are prematurely trying to worry people into being into sitting less. I think being active is awesome, but it should be something you do because you enjoy it, or because you have weighed the pros and cons and decided it's worthwhile; it should not be something you do because you were misled about the the health risks.

joahua• 15 years ago

Particular reason for scarequotes around 'good' re: botox? Cosmetic surgery connotations aside, botox is used for (quite effective) treatment of cerebal palsy / muscle spasticity.

maxxxxx4• 15 years ago

It's definitely a real issue. I have been working at a desk since my 20s. Now in my 40s my legs go numb after sitting for a half an hour. The problem goes away when I am on vacation for a few weeks. I bet a lot of health issues would go away if people could spend less time sitting.

deltaqueue• 15 years ago

Do you have proper posture and a chair suitable for your stature? I'm sure the answer is yes, but a chair with a base too deep or too shallow could easily cause numb legs over an extended period of time.

mgcross• 15 years ago

Same with me. 41 and never had a problem sitting until about a month ago. Left leg goes numb and/or hurts. I do pretty intense strength training at lunch 4 days a week, but it's not enough. I now have to get up and walk more during the day or even alternate between standing at my desk and kneeling.

VMG• 15 years ago

My dream of working (short of brain-machine interface) is a tiny screen mounted in front of my eye (monochrome tty would suffice) and input by hand gestures.

But still, I probably would have to sit down to work because it would be too dangerous to walk around while concentrating on something else. Maybe standing or lying down would be an advantage.

abas• 15 years ago

How is your mattress?

I started having a similar experience this year and also started feeling better while on vacation. When I returned home and it immediately got worse again I realized my mattress was part of the problem (the symptoms were often the worst in the morning, though they persisted all day). It was not a terrible mattress, but over the years had gotten a little saggy in the middle. I bought a new mattress and while, the problem hasn't completely gone away, it has gotten a lot better.

jsz0• 15 years ago

It sure seems that way. Sitting isn't a new fad. People have been doing it for many years. Even if you want to look at the last few decades as increasing our sit time dramatically it still doesn't jive with reality. Death from heart disease and stroke care actually down in the US sharply in the last decade.

maxxxxx4• 15 years ago

I think sitting pretty much the whole day is a very new thing. I don't think many people did that before computers.

SomeCallMeTim4• 15 years ago

I see "health scare meme" as a potentially dangerous meme in and of itself.

YES, the media can exaggerate the result of a single study and people will overreact to it (see: "margarine is healthier than butter," then more recently the reverse). In this particular study, the results may not be conclusive enough to act on; that aside, there ARE other health studies that have been successfully repeated (for example, the negative effects of hydrogenated oils/trans fats) that are also frequently dismissed by a media-weary public as yet another "health scare meme".

The "trans fats are bad" idea is finally going mainstream, but IMO it took years longer than it should have because of the media's tendency to jump at the first study showing a surprising result, and thus inuring the public to "bad health news," which a majority of people then proceed to ignore (and a minority jump onto the latest bandwagon).

In the case of standing vs. sitting, I saw this study months ago, and at the same time I started feeling uncomfortable sitting for long periods, and the combination caused me to build a standing desk. I'm now standing most days, and for me it's a great improvement -- YMMV, and not saying it proves anything but possibly that my circulation wasn't so great.

Regardless, I'm on this particular bandwagon, and it improves my QoL, so I'm staying, regardless of the scorn people may have for health fads. ;)

johnnyjustice• 15 years ago

Could you elaborate on how it improves your QoL

ellyagg• 15 years ago

No way. Health scare memes are absolutely dangerous and almost certainly the reason for the most pernicious and widespread health problems in the US.

The media always need a new villain. If it were settled that an obvious component of our diet were the culprit for most of our problems, much of the drama and conflict would be drained from one of their favorite story lines.

Your example of trans fats is a good one. Trans fats are bad relative to other fats, but nowhere near as sickening as sugar and corn syrup. Unfortunately, reporting on the evils of trans fats is in its shiny glamorous stage, so we are bombarded with stories about it, which creates a skewed perspective on what matters to our dietary health.

Today's health crises, which exploded around 1980, can be traced back to the media trumpeting the twin (false) claims that dietary fat is evil and that corn syrup is a healthful alternative to sugar. Given the power of the media, this predictably resulted in an explosion of corn syrup uptake and consequently an explosion in obesity, diabetes, and probably cancer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...

omfut• 15 years ago

I agree with the article. I have been working out for years and still got back problems. Was diagnosed with mild herniated disk. Reason- Bad posture and sitting for long hours. Also the chair that we use to sit plays a big role.

samtp2• 15 years ago

This isn't a fad. I work with Dr. Blair at USC and he has been researching physical activity effects on health for the past 20 years. He is one of the leading exercise science researchers with over 2000 citations per year.

lutorm• 15 years ago

Since it hasn't been a topic in the press for those 20 years, I think that actually supports the idea that this is a fad. Fads are mostly disconnected from the slow progression of science. (I don't mean that makes it wrong, of course.)

vehementi• 15 years ago

Is there data that excludes obese people?

LarryA• 15 years ago

I'm totally all for having recess, and we need more playgrounds for us older kids. :-D (Imagine the recess scene in the spoof movie Fatal Instinct)

To that - with my hours cutback at work I now have a home office with a standing/sitting desk now, it's great.

kleiba• 15 years ago

[...] he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity

Wow, there are people who sit only 1.5 hours per day on average? I spend more time sitting on my way to work and back alone.

andrewjshults• 15 years ago

If it's self reported (which seems to be the case from the article, I could imagine that people reporting under 11 hours might be using different criteria for what they really consider sedentary activity compared to those that report over 23 hours a week. I fall closer to the 11 hours a week (standing desk, bike to work, bar height dining table at home) but agree that even with all of that it'd be rare that I'd be sitting for less than 1.5 hours a day (especially factoring in weekends).

ck2• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2450170

Between this sitting-is-death and the sugar-is-death, there should be tens of millions of dead office workers who died before 60 in the past few decades.

arn• 15 years ago

well, heart disease is the number one cause of death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

kragen• 15 years ago

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html says 12% of all people in the US would die before the age of 60 at current age-group death rates. Currently about 2.4 million people die in the US per year http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm, so probably about 50 million have died over the last three decades. All developed countries together are about triple the population of the US, so 150 million total deaths. Let's say half of these were white-collar workers, or 75 million.

If early death is independent of white-collar status, then you'd expect about 10 million dead office workers who died before 60 in the past few decades, even if sitting and sugar have no effects on death risk.

brown9-2• 15 years ago

The New York Times magazine published a longer article on the same subject a few weeks ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.h...

j_baker• 15 years ago

I don't see any evidence that this is causation and not just correlation. I'd believe that people who sit more are at higher risk for heart attack. But I'd also argue that those people are more likely to get less exercise.

msluyter• 15 years ago

But didn't these studies control for exercise?

But now, researchers are beginning to suspect that even if you engage in regular exercise daily, it may not be enough to counteract the effects of too much sitting during the rest of the day.

assiotis• 15 years ago

That is not what the researchers suspect. The article misquotes the study. You only have to go as far as the abstract to find: "Regardless of the amount of sedentary activity reported by these men, being older, having normal weight, being normotensive, and being physically active were associated with a reduced risk of CVD death."

DanielStraight• 15 years ago

I'm only one data point, but I felt significantly better in two or three days after hacking together a sit/stand desk. I can point to specific aches, pains and other minor medical issues that I simply no longer have now that I divide my time between sitting and standing.

SomeCallMeTim4• 15 years ago

I'm another data point. Built my own standing desk and bought a drafting chair; I frequently stand most of the day, and it's improved my posture markedly.

I'd gone through a series of various expensive "ergo" chairs, and yet I would get a feeling of suffocation when sitting for too long. Now I can work for extended periods without the need to "get up and walk around."

And when particularly good music comes on the radio, I can dance to it during compiles. Yes, I work in an office where no one can see me. ;)

Isamu• 15 years ago

It took me more like a month to get used to it after I set up my standing desk.

I feel like my posture is better and my back is stronger.

ramblerman• 15 years ago

Is that third cartoon doing a boogy?

proponentia• 15 years ago

Explanationless science always gets into difficulties.

That said, I suspect that watching TV all day everyday would kill a person, eventually, because thinking without a break depletes the CNS of resources which would otherwise be used to regulate the body.

(Note: TV watching is a kind of externally driven thinking. More draining than thinking about the show would be the guilt thoughts caused by watching TV all day given that our culture believes (a) that watching too much TV is bad, and (b) that productive work is good.)

However, it's misleading to claim that sitting around all day is unhealthy. For instance, you won't get a heart attack if you are a Buddhist Monk sitting in meditation.

Also, moving around all day would kill people, eventually, by similar means and for similar reasons to TV watching. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518

minsight• 15 years ago

"For instance, you won't get a heart attack if you are a Buddhist Monk sitting in meditation."

There's a claim that I won't buy without some sort of a citation.

hugh3• 15 years ago

I googled "died while meditating" and found this dude:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luang_Pho_Daeng

who not only died while meditating in a lotus position, but supposedly failed to decompose afterwards. (I don't know whether it was a heart attack though...)

samtp2• 15 years ago

You should know that Dr. Blair is basically the world expert in healthy habits and physical activity. He is cited in medical journals over 2000 times every year. This is not explanationless science, but science backed by 20 years of rigorous research.

benihana• 15 years ago

>Those who were sitting more were substantially more likely to die

That has to be the stupidest quote I've ever read. Are you telling me that if I sit less often, I'll be less likely to die?

forgottenpaswrd• 15 years ago

Am I the only one in hacker news that does not sit down at all at work? We are bipeds designed for standing on our two foot and moving from a while.

I have lifeguards friends that talked to me about the change in the body shape they have seen over the years, especially women as the spend more and more time sit down in front of the computer.

So I decided to change, it took months to get used to it as all musculature had been trained by years to sit down as since school time and on kids-adults are forced to sit down.

I had worked as a teacher for kids and is really really interesting HOW THEY OPPOSE AND RESIST sitting in the same place without moving. One day we had strong hail storm out there and the principal-director forced us to keep kids inside on playtime. Other teachers forced kids to sit on their chairs so they could count and control them easily. The next class I had the kids almost exploding under their desk with painful anxiety. So I let them stand up and move as they wish while I was giving my class!!. It worked wonderfully.

If I sit I use a Bar Stool, but I'm standing up 90% of the time. My computer is in front of my eyes. I love it.

If you try it, CAUTION, it will take time for your musculature to adapt, at least a month.

efsavage• 15 years ago

Well, we're really designed to walk/run. Sitting at a bar school or standing still all day comes with its own set of health issues (not saying if they're equal or not, but they're present).

xpaulbettsx• 15 years ago

Do you end up using a desk that is just elevated? I'm considering this approach as well.

mildavw2• 15 years ago

I and a few of my co-workers stand all day. We are moving to a new office and I took a survey in order to buy appropriate furniture. Everyone wanted stand up desks. I just ordered 20 of these http://www.ergodepot.com/Ergo_Depot_adjustable_desk_AD127HD_... and only 6 chairs.

pbz• 15 years ago

Have you considered this one: http://www.geekdesk.com/default.asp?contentID=604 Just curious why you picked that one.

Estragon• 15 years ago

I stand while I work. It's good for concentration.

joe_the_user• 15 years ago

About two weeks ago, I started standing 100% of the time while working.

I'm at the computer maybe 9-10+ hours/day. So this has been essentially a complete change in my habits of physical movement/rest.

I do martial arts and some body work regularly, so I started out in what I considered to be good physical shape but it definitely has been ... challenging.

I think I'm getting closer to adjusted currently. When I began, there were times when my legs felt something like lead.

postfuturist• 15 years ago

This sort of 'science writing' is infuriating:

"Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised."

Well, is he controlling for those who exercise or not? If not, then what is the point?

nostromo• 15 years ago

Well, at least NPR links to the studies they are citing -- so if you really want to dig in to the details, they are right there for you.

bsgreenb2• 15 years ago

Even controlling for exercize wouldn't save this study.. Genetic and environmental factors will correlate with a sit-down lifestyle, confounding any possible conclusions.

You could rule out genetic and family environment factors by comparing identical twins who have different sitting habits. My bet is that a big chunk, if not all, of the effect here could be explained by that. For the remaining "effect", you'd still have the issue of non-family environmental collinearity, though.

Maybe you could find a job where people were randomly assigned to sitting vs. standing tasks. That'd be a nifty little natural experiment

orofino• 15 years ago

Couldn't the same be said of most medical findings? Should we verify all findings utilizing fully controlled testing on twins?

niels_olson• 15 years ago

As a physician, I find NPR is generally good at addressing issues at a level the average person can understand. No one is claiming the NPR article is the study. They do link to the studies in the text.

As for controlling for exercise: the whole point of the article is that researchers are finding that outcomes are at least reliably associated (with or without causality) with sedentary activity, that is, specifically measuring the amount of not-doing-anything-physical.

The Warren study very specifically looked at driving and watching TV as it relates to cardiovascular disease. In the introduction, they specifically address your contention:

============

Sedentary pursuits represent a unique aspect of human behavior and should not be viewed as simply the extreme low end of the physical activity continuum. For example, several studies have demonstrated that excess TV viewing time, independent from overall physical activity levels, is adversely associated with metabolic risk factors (18)

[ed: ref 18 is Hamilton MT, Hamilton DG, Zderic TW. Role of low energy expenditure and sitting in obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Diabetes. 2007;56(11):2655–67.]

============

carbocation• 15 years ago

I've written to NPR previously about errors that I've found in their presentation of clinical trials and invariably they respond with, "Well, this is our interpretation." Nevermind that said interpretation would get them laughed off of the wards at any teaching hospital. Not saying that about the current article--merely pointing out that even NPR gets it egregiously wrong sometimes.

jaysonelliot• 15 years ago

I'm lucky, I have a shelf in my office that happens to be perfect standing height for me. I decided to put my laptop on the shelf when I came in this morning, and give it a try.

My office: http://yfrog.com/h7m5ajhyj

So far today, I've gotten far more done than a normal Monday morning, and my energy level is way up.

This could be good.

city41• 15 years ago

I'm two weeks into my standing desk experiment. If you stick with it, you're in for some discomfort. My legs adjusted quickly, the bottoms of my feet are still toughening up.

The problem is my current standing desk only allows standing. I'm 100% committed to standing if I am working. That's fine 95% of the time, but there is that 5% (like after I've worked out for the day or already put in 10+ hours of standing but found I need to get some emergency/last minute stuff done) where I really do not want to stand.

After two weeks I feel like my conclusion is the ideal desk is one that can easily adjust between standing and sitting, but stand most of the time.

georgieporgie• 15 years ago

How about a standing desk with a taller chair for the times when you need to rest your lower half?

nzadrozny• 15 years ago

I love my stand-up desk, which I hacked together from an Ikea Galant: http://flic.kr/p/9kYneT

Total cost: around $200.

a5seo• 15 years ago

I've started using the Pomadoro technique, 30 mins focused work and 5 mins of "break" (there's more to it, but that's the gist).

I'm going to make a real effort to use those 5 minutes to walk around and do something instead of look at lolcats from now on...

Someone• 15 years ago

I think varicose veins are evidence that standing up all day isn't what we were evolved for.

Looking at chimps, gorillas, orang utan seems to conform that. In my limited knowledge, those species spend hours sitting or lying down.

=> I would guess it is not the sitting, but the sitting for long stretches in the same posture that is the problem.

oconnor0• 15 years ago

Interesting. What research is there on people standing all day getting varicose veins and the negatives of that versus sitting all day and the negatives of that?

cormullion• 15 years ago

Plenty of anti-standing information here:

http://www.hazards.org/standing/index.htm

singular3• 15 years ago

I don't mean to sound facetious, but aren't we designed to also sit as well as stand/walk/run? That's what the buttocks have evolved for, after all:-

"Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to be taken off the feet while sitting" [1]

Of course, having said that, we probably weren't designed for the amount of sitting a typical officer worker does, and certainly weren't designed for being sedentary.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttocks

singular3• 15 years ago

Well, not surprising that was down-voted, but seriously - if somebody contends that we're 'not designed for X', yet we have actually evolved to be able to do X, I think it's reasonable to point that out, even if the fact is that we do too much sitting down.

shpxnvz• 15 years ago

While it may in fact be true that we evolved to able to sit, the sentence you quoted is in no way evidence of it. A link to supporting evidence, or even a well reasoned argument, would go along way towards backing up your claim.

teyc• 15 years ago

Standing all day in a single spot can be pretty tiring too. A footstool can help a little, but it is probably best to have a mix of postures.

yewweitan• 15 years ago

Shameless Plug for a piece that I wrote that talks about some of these issues and more importantly, their practical resolution.

'Should I get a Standing Desk?' - http://www.yewhealth.com/2011/04/03/should-i-get-a-standing-...

Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think

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