Sedentary lifestyles may be worse for you than smoking

A sedentary lifestyle in women 30 and older is one of the worst offenders in causing heart disease.

Researchers in Australia compared the risk factors associated with four different characteristics of women and found sedentary lifestyles to be the more dangerous of the four in women over 30. The other three were obesity, smoking and high blood pressure.

The new study, published Thursday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, has gathered data on over 32,000 women and their lifestyle habits over 20 years and found that, up to the age of 30, smoking poses the highest risk in women. After age 30, sedentary lifestyles seem to be more dangerous.

Many focus on the dangers of obesity and a good way to combat obesity is with regular exercise, but there are also many who live sedentary lives but are not obese or overweight who are still at higher risk of heart disease. Most who exercise also believe workouts in the evening can counteract a day of sitting at work but recent research from the Alberta Centre for Active Living suggests this may not be the case. People should try to get up an move around regularly throughout the day.

The study also found that as women age they become less likely to exercise regularly.