We all do it but apparently scientists have now discovered that sitting down is bad for us. Which of course begs the question as to whether there is anything left that might not be hazardous to our health. Drinking soda, smoking, headphones, cell phones, the list goes on, and now sitting!
“Prolonged sitting is not what nature intended for us,” says Dr. Camelia Davtyan, clinical professor of medicine and director of women’s health at the UCLA Comprehensive Health Program.
“The chair is out to kill us,” says James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine. Well tell that to your boss as you stand around the office all day. Not sitting is just not practical. Imagine standing on a trans -Atlantic flight, or through a Dentist’s visit or joining friends for a stand – up dinner or movie? It’s bad enough sitting through a boring play but what about standing through one. Maybe okay for sleep walkers but this health warning really has no legs whatsoever.
Let’s face it we all sit and it seems unlikely that any of us will quit anytime soon. This isn’t smoking. You can’t just quit sitting but then again I suppose we can cut down. Indeed, this maybe a case of standing up for our right’s or getting a new seating plan.
Unfortunately, a good deal of data suggests that we should spend less time sitting down. After all the human body was designed for walking, and people did a whole lot of that for millenniums. Yet, in more recent times we may have been sitting too much. Americans now sit for more than half of their waking hours which certainly puts a whole new meaning on ‘take a seat.’
Sadly experts believe “the sitting position exerts forces on the body that it’s not built to accommodate,” Davtyan says, and so, as comfy as it may seem, couch potato-hood can lead to a host of woes, including poor circulation and assorted aches and pains. It can also make you fat but is it really as dangerous as smoking? From now on just sit at your own risk but at least take a stand when they come to take your chair away!
