Why Sitting is Being Called the New Smoking
by Dr. David Carson
I’ve been working with posture and advising people to sit less for years because of the recognized harmful effects of forward head carriage on mortality and morbidity. In a study done several years ago, there was a direct correlation between how long we live and how far forward our head posture is from the rest of the spine. People with worse posture (head further forward) on the whole were found to die sooner than people with better posture. I’ve always looked at this from a structural and neurological perspective. As the system is stressed by the misalignment that comes with poor posture there is a direct effect on the nervous system that impacts overall health. Basic chiropractic science. And it works both ways of course, as the system is stressed it is thrown into the defence that produces that poor posture.
Now there comes new evidence of the negative impact of sitting on posture and how bad that is for our health. Sitting excessively (and there is some dispute about what is excessive) lowers our base metabolic rate which means we don’t burn calories at a high enough rate. This leads directly to almost all the major degenerative diseases that are the major killers in modern society: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. While it may sound extreme, these findings are the reason that sitting is being called “the new smoking”.
In a book I recommend entitled, Get Up! Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It, Mayo clinic researcher, James A. Levine, details the findings of several years of research he has done on the effects of sitting. He is the developer of the stand-up desk, which he is now integrating into school settings, as well as apps for monitoring your daily activity and walking 10,000 steps per day. One of the more interesting findings is that intentional exercise (i.e. your pilates class) alone isn’t enough to overcome the effects of sitting. There has to be a certain level of activity throughout the day to keep the base metabolic rate high enough to burn calories.
A meta analysis of all the research done in this area that came out in the past year reinforces this message. If you google “sitting related to bad health” there are many references to this message. Here is a link to one of the articles:http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sitting-for-too-long-can-kill-you-even-if-you-exercise-study-1.2918678
Worth checking out.
Takeaway: 1. Poor posture and sitting have been positively correlated to poorer health and shorter lifespan. We need to reinforce better posture with awareness, exercise and chiropractic care.
2. Sit less: Exercise alone is not enough overcome the negative effects of sitting. We need to keep moving throughout the day to overcome the effects of our sedentary lifestyle.