Do You Sit a Lot?

Posted By elissa on Jun 16, 2010 | 1 comment

It might not be so great for your health, even if you exercise regularly.

Canadian researchers are part of a pioneer field of study looking at the effects that sitting has on the body. At a lab in Ottawa, scientists are observing children as they watch TV, monitoring their pressure and oxygen consumption. The scientists want to see how sedentary time, such as sitting all day at school and then channel surfing at night, harms children’s health.

After two to seven hours of uninterrupted sitting, there is evidence “that is enough to increase [subjects’] blood sugar, to decrease their good cholesterol and to have a real impact on their health,” said Travis Saunders, a researcher in exercise physiology at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottawa.

Conventionally, sitting and lying down were seen as simply the opposite of moving. But our cells and muscles actually respond to the strains of prolonged sitting, said Mark Tremblay, director of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at CHEO.

Click here to view a video report.