Prolonged sitting may cause high BMI, heart problems and spinal cord issues.
According to a new study conducted by the Ottawa Heart Institute, chair sitting may endanger your health. It has been known, for some time now, that activities involving sitting on a chair, may be detrimental to your overall health. Sitting on a chair can put quite a lot of strain on the spinal cord, and spending lots of hours surfing on the internet or catching up on your work and surely leave you with a sore back.
The Canadian scientists who were behind this study wanted to see how sitting on a chair can impact a person that also has a heart disease. The overall result were somewhat shocking. It would seem that an average person, which also has a heart disease and decides to spend more than 8 hours on a chair will soon see a worsening in terms of health.
All patients that admitted into spending a long time sitting on a chair also exhibited a higher BMI than those who choose to spend time sitting on a chair. Moreover, it would seem that exercise alone isn’t enough when you’re spending too much time in that recliner. The most sacred advice any medical practitioner gives to his patient is to spend less time on a chair and more time doing physical exercises. If, for some reason or another, you are bound to spend a couple of hours on the chair, to take a respite, every 30 minutes. Use this time to walk around and to stretch your back. It would be an even better idea if you would perform some simple exercises.
Chair sitting may endanger your health, and the statement is confirmed even though the tests performed on the patients. The test group had to undergo a series of procedures, aimed at measuring some physiological parameters. One of them was the BMI, and the second one is the VO2 peak. Also called aerobic capacity, the test aims at measuring the maximum level of oxygen your muscles, lungs and heart require when you are performing physical exercises. All of them got very low score on both BMI and VO2 tests.
So, what is the doctor’s advice regarding the chair sitting etiquette? First of all, you should take a break every 30 minutes and use this time to move around the room. If, by chance, are watching TV a lot, it’s a good idea to get up and go for a walk during commercials.
Regarding healthy table manners, the doctors recommend to go outside and grab a bite to eat. Avoid eating in from of the computer or in bed.
The Canadian heart institute has placed sitting on the chair among sedentary activities, along with TV watching, playing\working on a computer and driving a car.
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