We read an interesting piece on Forbes this week about the risk of death increasing due to increased sedentary lifestyle and office jobs which require you to be at a desk for large periods of your day. We may start to look at the health benefits of standing desks. We have summarised the article below.
A recent study has confirmed that sitting for extended periods at work increases the risk of death from all causes, particularly metabolic and cardiac complications. The study demonstrated increased risk even among people who take exercise.
Further research is still going on to determine the relationship between sedentary behaviours like lying down and sitting and such chronic diseases as obesity. Sedentary lifestyle is common at the workplace where people spend an average of nine hours, and more than 80 percent of jobs do not involve any physical exertion.
The situation is serious considering that most of the workers spend more than four hours sitting, increasing the risks significantly. Thirty percent of those who participated in the study said their occupations involved many hours of sitting.
The research studied the relationship between body mass index, occupational sitting and mortality. Mortality from all causes increased with increase in BMI from normal weight to obesity. The study associated sedentary work with high metabolic/cardiac disease mortality and all-cause mortality. Together with BMI, the risk for all-cause mortality increased across all occupational activity levels.
Those facing the highest risks, after adjusting for physical activity outside work, health and demographic characteristics, are workers whose careers do not involve some activity. Occupational activity had a significant protective effect among workers whose BMIs were in the obese and overweight categories.
However, the research did not include standing and quality of diet.
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