Inactivity. Is it bad for you? Of course. But the latest research, as reported by MSN.com, shows that it may be worse than we thought.
Even if you think you have an energetic lifestyle, sitting is how most of us spend a good part of our day. And it’s killing us — literally — by way of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Most people in modern society live fairly sedentary lives. They go from the television to the computer and back.
Sitting, sitting and more sitting. How many hours?
According to a poll of nearly 6,300 people by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, it’s likely that you spend a stunning 56 hours a week planted like a geranium…
Well, that’s a lot of hours. Common sense would tell you that you could remedy all the sitting by getting extra exercise. But is that true?
We’ve become so sedentary that 30 minutes a day at the gym may not do enough to counteract the detrimental effects of eight, nine, or 10 hours of sitting, says Genevieve Healy, Ph.D., a research fellow at the Cancer Prevention Research Centre of the University of Queensland in Australia.
The result: constant struggles with weight, blood pressure and diabetes, even while attempting to eat right and get proper exercise.
There’s a reason for that. Most people underestimate the amount of exercise that is needed to be healthy.
These human bodies developed during a time when they were active almost constantly. There were no indoor activities. Caves and huts and houses throughout history were dark.
When the sun came up everyone was out of doors. Survival involved activity — hunting, tending crops, getting water — and those that did not move did not survive.
Not so today. And inertia is a difficult thing. It’s hard to overcome. It leads to looking for the easy way.
It also leads doctors and therapists and trainers and people who should know better to minimize their exercise recommendations. So you see things like ultraquick workouts. And ads for devices that will make exercise painless, quick and easy.
Fortunately or unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. You can’t be fit and healthy without exercise. And a few minutes 3 times a week — despite what you’ve heard and despite what you’d like to believe — is just not enough.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34209499/ns/health-fitness/
