Note: This article is from Christine Byrne's blog, and discusses ideas from a book on health topics, including the dangers of sitting.
There is a room in the building that houses the graduate classes that I attend, and there is a treadmill in it, which students and staff are encouraged to use. On most floors of the building you will see standing desks, touted as an end to unhealthy work environments or a way to combat back pain and weight gain.
But Levine's claim that sitting is as harmful as smoking may be hard to believe. Like many, I work in an office, and although I may move around a bit in my spare time, there is no way to avoid sitting behind my desk for the majority of the day. This is one of the reasons why claiming that sitting is just as harmful as smoking is exaggerated, because no one needs to smoke, but we all need to sit down.
"Exercised" is the title of a new book by Harvard evolutionary biology professor Dan Lieberman, in which he refutes the idea that sitting is as deadly as smoking.
“The main argument in my book is that we make people feel uncomfortable about exercise and physical activity,” Lieberman said in the book. “We make them anxious, nervous, and confused when we give them this bad information. We give it too much value and judgment.”
Lieberman argues that oversimplifications and myths, even if well-intentioned, may do more harm than good. This is especially true when it comes to this concern about the harms of sitting.
Sitting down is not a trend
One of the main reasons for this concern about the dangers of sitting is our belief that people in non-industrial societies sit less than we do. Lieberman objects to this for several reasons.
He says, “We think that what hunter-gatherers do, for example, must be good for us, but this belief is trivial, and yet it is unfortunately very common. We can take Paleo’s system as an example. This is a very bad way in which we seek to apply development to the health field.”
In his book, Lieberman explains why these ideas are considered bad. Our ancestors did not evolve to be healthy, rather, they evolved to reproduce. They did so, achieving as many offspring as possible. So, let's stop copying their lifestyle in the name of health.
Lieberman continues: "However, it is not true that sitting is associated with industrial societies. If we look at hunter-gatherer societies, we will find that their members sit for 10 hours a day, and then the ordinary hunters and gatherers, who have neither chairs nor office jobs, sit for as many hours as an American citizen.”
In fact, many hunters sit on the ground in a normal position or squatting, and this position works fewer muscles than the position of sitting on a chair, but with that, it is a comfortable position.
Statistics regarding the number of sitting hours give conflicting numbers
Information about the so-called risks of sitting is often accompanied by conflicting statistics about the amount of time we spend sitting during the day.
“If you go online and Google how many hours Americans sit, the first five or six results will give you five or six different answers,” Lieberman says.
There is an article in the Washington Post in 2019 that claims that American adults sit for six and a half hours a day, followed by an article on Forbes in 2019 as well that claims that the number of sitting hours is 15 hours a day. People make things up and choose data to support their arguments."
According to Lieberman, high-quality data based on accelerometers - electrical sensors that measure acceleration and can tell when you sit, stand, and lie down - give very different results in the number of hours people spend sitting, with some people sitting more than others and even having different sitting habits that vary greatly from day to day, especially if we compare working days to the weekend.
“Because of these differences, there is no single definitive statistic that applies to all of us, yet there is an average number of hours during which we are in a seated position,” Lieberman says. “For example, younger Americans sit about 9 or 10 hours a day, while older adults sit between 12 and 13 hours a day.
Sitting in free time is more harmful than sitting at work
The notion that sitting is as harmful as smoking may be the most worrying concern for people who have no choice but to sit for long hours at work, but Lieberman's book highlights some reassuring evidence.
A 15-year cohort study of 10,000 adults in Denmark found that working in a sitting position was not associated with an increased risk of heart disease, and another study of 66,000 people found similar results in Japan.
In this context, Lieberman says in his book: "Sitting is not as bad as we imagine, but sitting for long periods of time can be harmful if a person does not engage in some physical activity."
If you drive to work in the morning and sit at your desk all day, then come home to spend your evening sitting on the sofa, it means that you are not doing the physical activity as you should, but it is also possible to be a physically active person and yet you spend nine or ten hours of your day sitting.”
Getting up frequently is very beneficial, regardless of the total sitting hours
The reason some people suggest walking after dinner is that it aids in digestion. This is because when we move our muscles through even a light activity such as walking or cooking, we convert sugar and fat molecules in the bloodstream into energy that we use.
But when we sit continuously for long periods of time, the sugar and fat molecules stay in the bloodstream for longer, which is one reason some people argue that sitting for long hours increases the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Assuming that these fears are justified, you can simply mitigate them by getting up from time to time from a sitting position.
Lieberman explained that in studies in which researchers looked at how long we sat without getting up, they found that people who got up every 12 minutes had a lower risk of disease than those who sat for longer than 30 minutes, regardless of the total hours they sat in the day.
Lieberman explains the benefit of this: “The main reason is that you move your muscles even if you are a little active, but as a result you reduce the amount of sugar and fat in the bloodstream, and you also stimulate your muscles to produce natural antibiotics.”
This is what Lieberman suggests: “Get up from time to time and drink some water, play a little with your dog, or talk to your co-worker. The idea is to do anything that gets you off the chair for a minute or two. Sitting is not in itself harmful, except if you sit for long hours without doing any physical activity.
Standing desks are not a panacea
Lieberman has a standing desk, and he says he uses it a lot. He used the accelerometer to figure out the total hours he sat during the day, and he found it to be eight hours and a half on average, but most people misunderstand the benefits of this type of seat.
- we must know that no high-quality studies have been conducted linking the use of these offices to a reduction in the incidence of chronic diseases.
- Although some people use these desks to avoid or relieve lower back pain, no direct association has been found between sitting - whether in a straight or bent position - and back pain in general.
- These desks are marketed as effective ways to lose weight, but in fact, standing burns within an hour only eight calories, more than the calories burned in a sitting position. However, the activities that burn a large number of calories are not closely related to losing weight.
"Let's not pretend they play sports," Lieberman says.
Therefore, Lieberman considers that standing is equal in terms of its benefits to other forms of sitting, in which the body is more active, such as sitting in a squatting position or sitting on a chair that has no backrest. You have to use more muscles to keep your back upright, so the benefits of a standing desk are the same as those you get if you get up from your chair from time to time.
Don't settle for simplistic and exaggerated medical advice
So sitting is not as harmful as smoking, as claimed by "James Levine." You may have a job that requires you to sit for long hours, but you do a good amount of physical activity, and you may have a healthy diet and refrain from smoking, and perhaps even drinking. All of this makes your risk of chronic disease low.
But Lieberman does not say in his book that we should abandon the idea that sitting for long periods can only be harmful. Rather, he says, "It is true that physical activity is beneficial and excessive sitting is harmful, but instead of explaining why, many health experts exaggerate the disadvantages and present the benefits in too simplistic terms."
Exaggerating the disadvantages of something is not a useful thing; It provides a practical solution for people, increases their anxiety, and this is undoubtedly detrimental to their health.
Lieberman instead believes that it is our duty to give people more and more comprehensive information, especially since he believes that people can handle an acceptable level of information complexity.
“Instead of making one shocking and terrifying sentence about the dangers of sitting,” Lieberman says, “a better way is to explain how and why sitting too much is harmful, even using standing desks.
When people know this information, they will change their habits for the better rather than shocking them with short and frightening information that makes them believe that simple changes will not work.
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