HAZARDS OF PROLONGED SITTING

Abstract

We are still not sure that what comes first, prolonged sitting leading to poor healthor poor health leading to prolonged sitting, this is what the experts believe till now.There is growing evidence that prolonged sitting dilutes the good effects ofadequate physical activity.

There are many well known hazards of prolonged sitting and nearly all areaddressed to the general public and medical community. The most commonones are obesity, hypertension, diabetes, impaired lipid metabolism, metabolicsyndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Sitting at desk for long reduces activityother than exercise. Thermogenesis is generally a much greater component oftotal energy expenditure than exercise. This disrupts the normal balance ofenergy utilization at cellular level.

A study on older women revealed sitting for long stretches of time increased the odds of untimely death. The more hours womenin the study spent sitting at work, driving, lying on the couch watching TV, or engaged in other leisurely pursuits, the greater theirodds of dying early from all causes, including heart disease and cancer. In the study, women who were inactive for 11 or morehours a day faced the worst, facing a 12% increase in premature death.