Don’t Just Sit There!

Sitting may shorten your life. A recent analysis of data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey concluded that if we could reduce the time we spend sitting at work or at home to less than three hours a day we might live as much as two years longer. Watching less than two hours of television daily could also stretch life expectancy by more than a year. A majority of the respondents in the survey sat at least 6 hours a day, and most people also watched TV for more than two hours daily. The authors point out that these estimates apply to Americans as a whole, rather than to individuals. The evidence keeps accumulating, however, that sitting less and moving more is likely to be better for your health.
[BMJ Open, July 9, 2012]