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.
This story is from the November 2023 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
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This story is from the November 2023 edition of Australian Women’s Weekly NZ.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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