The American public is currently going through a new health revolution. Even though obesity levels and sedentary lifestyles are still on the rise in the population, there is a much stronger concern about avoiding serious and chronic health issues in the United States than there has ever been. This is why there has also been such a steady decrease in many other unhealthy behaviors that lead to long-term, aggravated health conditions.
These unhealthy, long-term behaviors that have slowly died out include activities such as not wearing sunscreen while spending extended periods of time in harsh UV rays or regularly smoking/ chewing tobacco. While it’s extremely obvious to us now how detrimental these activities are to our ability to live long, healthy lives, there was a time when people were simply unaware and uneducated to how terrible these habits were for them.
Thankfully, it seems like the education about smoking tobacco has finally caught on with the American public; that’s why smoking levels are finally decreasing year by year.
But are there any activities that we, as a society, currently incorporate into our daily lives that could be as damaging as smoking tobacco was? Perhaps there are some things that we consistently do as a population that are killing us that we are not educated about yet. Recent studies have shown that there actually is an activity that most of us engage in regularly (almost certainly daily, perhaps even hourly!) that is extremely detrimental to our health. You will be shocked when you find out what it is.
Let’s take a close look below on why sitting at your desk is the new smoking!
Most people understand that leading a sedentary lifestyle increases your chance of many health conditions and even death. However, simply sitting at your desk for work (or even at home) for an extended amount of time can have seriously detrimental health effects even if you otherwise lead a very active lifestyle. A study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2017 concluded that sitting for extremely long amounts of time increase your chances for an early death tremendously, no matter how long or regularly you exercised. This study was based on a sample size of over 8,000 adults.
During this study, they found a direct correlation between your risk of any type of early mortality to the amount of time spent sitting per day. Shockingly, people in the United States sit for an unnaturally large percentage of the day! As a matter of fact, the typical American adult sits anywhere from 9 to 12.5 hours per day! What can you do to reduce your risk of dying early from sitting down too much?
The answer is simple: sit less and move more!
Researchers concluded that research subjects who sat for less than 30 minutes during any given “sitting” session had the lowest risk of an early-onset death. If you have to sit down for extended periods of time due to work or any other reason, make sure you move and engage your body at a brisk pace for a minimum of 5 minutes for every 30 minutes of consecutive sitting you have to do.
Do you understand why sitting at your desk is the new smoking? Hopefully, this article helped clarify why sitting can be so detrimental to your long-term health. If you need more clarification on why sitting is the new smoking, have any more questions about your overall longevity or want some personal health advice from one of the top chiropractic offices in the Valley, please contact us at FIX24 Joint Biomechanics at your convenience. It would be our pleasure to help you live as healthy as you possibly can!
