Is Sitting Really the New Smoking?

A couple of months ago I met with a Corporation about coming in and doing a presentation on Health and Wellness for their employees. One of their major concerns was the fact that they are sedentary most of the day. They go from meeting to meeting most times unable to go out for lunch and ordering in. Most of them have long commutes, leaving early in the morning and getting home late at night never leaving their office at all during the day. I asked if it was at all possible to take some time to get out and take a walk even if just for 1/2 an hour. They said no as you never knew when you would be called into a meeting. They had no time in the morning or the evening as they left so early and got home so late. I could certainly understand their concern.

 

Two weeks after meeting with them I got 3 emails all talking about how sitting was the new smoking. I had no idea how serious this really is and the impact it has on our health. So much so that I want to share some excerpts with you from one of them, Food Matters, a favorite resource of mine: 

Did you know that most of us spend more time each day sitting than sleeping?

According to researchers, the average person sits for 9.3 hours daily! This is significantly more than the 7.5 hours of sleep that the typical American gets each night!

However, the human body is naturally designed to move, not sit, and the alarming consequences of our sedentary lifestyle are only just coming to light.

Discover why sitting may just be the ‘smoking’ of our generation and what we can do to fix it!

Our typical work week looks like this, “drive”, “desk” and “couch.”

This is a far cry from how humans have lived for the last few millennia. Before technology, the human lifestyle was inherently active. ‘Movement’ and ‘exercise’ weren’t separate activities that needed to be scheduled – they were simply part of everyday life.

In fact, the chair and couch only came on the scene two centuries ago which makes prolonged sitting a relatively new phenomenon in the overall span of human evolution. Numerous studies strongly suggest that prolonged periods of sitting increases our risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular illness, and even cancer. Read on

Here Are Some Solutions To Consider

I’ve enjoyed spending this time with you and thrilled that you are a part of our community.

To Your Healthy Truth and Happiness,