Can sitting too much hurt your health?

Today’s Jockology column in the Globe and Mail looks at the latest research on the potential dangers of sedentary behaviour. This topic generated a lot of interest when I blogged about it a few weeks ago, so I decided to get in touch with Travis Saunders of Obesity Panacea, whose Ph.D. research is investigating this very question, to find out more:

[…] Two new studies highlight the growing consensus that long bouts of uninterrupted sedentary behaviour carry health risks that can’t be erased even if you’re getting plenty of exercise at other times during the day. Researchers are now rushing to determine exactly what counts as “sedentary,” and how people whose jobs require them to sit at a desk for the majority of their waking hours can mitigate some of these risks… [READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE]

Right now there are more questions than answers in this field, so the advice on what we should do to avoid these risks is necessarily vague. But I loved Travis’s answer to how he deals with the issue while awaiting the results of further studies:

Until then, we’re left with interim solutions – such as the $30 foot-pedal device that Mr. Saunders invested in last fall while preparing for his doctoral exams, when he realized he was spending 14 hours a day sitting at a desk reading about the dangers of sitting at a desk.

“It just sits under my desk and I pedal, I’d say about half [an] hour out of every hour. Very low intensity, but it’s engaging the muscles in my legs and the muscles in my lower back,” he says.

“I have no idea whether or not this is making a difference, but it’s plausible … and in the absence of any other options, I’m going to keep doing it.”