Contrary to what we have been reading lately about sitting being bad for health, a new study has claimed that’s not the case for people who are otherwise physically active.
According to researchers at University of Exeter and University College London, who followed more than 5000 participants for a period of 16 years, sitting at work or home for prolonged duration doesn’t increase the risk of early death challenging previous research findings that have claimed to show results that suggest that act of sitting itself causes harm even when people routinely walk a lot or do other exercise.
The findings are in contrast to National Health Services (NHS) recommendations that state that remaining seated for too long is bad for your health, regardless of how much exercise you do.
Researchers asked participants to provide information on total sitting time and on four other specific types of sitting behaviour including sitting at work; during leisure time; while watching TV; and sitting during leisure time excluding TV. Researchers also asked participants to provide details on daily walking and time spent engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity.
The study concluded that over the 16 year follow-up period none of these five sitting measures influenced mortality risk. Researchers say that findings are contrary to current thinking on the health risks of sitting and suggest that the problem in not sitting or the duration for which a person sat, but the problem is with the absence of movement.
“Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing”, said Dr Melvyn Hillsdon from Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter.
“Our findings suggest that reducing sitting time might not be quite as important for mortality risk as previously publicised and that encouraging people to be more active should still be a public health priority”, said Lead author Dr Richard Pulsford from Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter.
Researchers say that in future work, they will be considering whether long periods of sitting are associated with increased incidence of diseases such as heart disease and type II diabetes, and will investigate the biological mechanisms that underpin previously observed associations between sitting time and health outcomes.
