It's time to take a stand

If your body creaks, groans and aches more than it used to, using it differently could drastically change how you feel.

- EVA-MARIA BOBBERT

If sitting really is the new smoking then I am a sitting duck. On the scale of daily activity I’m inching towards inert. I sit on my 90-minute commute to write emails. I sit through meetings. I sit to research. I sit to write (in my defence, standing puts my derriere in awkward view of anyone who happens to glance up in our open-plan office). After sitting down for dinner, I flop on the couch.

The stats on what this king-sized dose of inactivity does to your health make me increasingly uneasy – one US study found that women and men who sit more than six hours a day are, respectively, 3 7 per cent and 18 per cent more likely to die before people who sit less than three hours a day. What’s interesting is that squeezing in a workout didn’t make much difference.

Sitting is increasingly recognised as a mortal sin for one reason: Our bodies are hardwired to move. We’re not talking hardcore spin class moves – though props to you if you’re making the effort – but the lifting, bending, crouching, walking, reaching, pushing, everyday action kind. According to Dr Kelly Starrett and Juliet Starrett, co-authors of Built To Move, regular everyday movements, including walking, are what keeps everything from our joints to our digestive system in good nick. And therein lies the good news – you don’t need to exercise madly to be ‘active’, you just need to break bouts of sitting with more movement.