PROLONGED SITTING CAN KILL FASTER THAN IMAGINED

Prolong sitting is one habit that receives less attention from most of us. While many jog or do one form of physical exercise or the other, the cardiovascular death though declining has not reached the target. Our entire modern world is constructed to keep you sitting down. When we drive, we sit. When we work at an office, we sit. When we watch TV, well, you get seated. Health-enhancing benefits of physical activity, this alone may not be enough to reduce the risk for disease.

Prolonged sitting, meaning sitting for eight to 12 hours or more a day, increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 90% as shown in a study.  Those with prolonged sitting hours have a 15 to 20 per cent higher risk of heart disease, death from heart disease, cancer, death from cancer. It then means that avoiding sedentary time and getting regular exercise are both important for improving your health and survival. Engaging in 30 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous daily exercise does not mean it’s proper for you to “sit on your rear” for the rest of the day.

Many of the currently available jobs are sedentary in nature; thanks to advent of computers and information technology (IT). While IT is useful we need to apply ourselves and prevent prolonged sitting by the computers. Prolonged sitting is not good for our health. Legs have the largest bulk of muscle in the body and when at rest, calories are not burnt and blood flow rate is reduced enhancing the ability for the blood to come together and form clot in those that are predisposed to it. Apart from this, when you sit for too long, the body weight increases leading to obesity.

Obesity is associated with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart attack, stroke, and cancers.  My concern is that these diseases are increasing in our communities traversing through the old and young, high and low social class, literate and those educationally underprivileged group. If you find yourselves obese or overweight, kindly reduce your weight by at least by 10%. People are dying at the prime of their ages; we shall all eat the fruits of our labour. Watch your weight, keep moving your legs and avoid sedentary lifestyles.

Start by examining the time you spent on computer, watching television, treating files in your offices, when in excess it leads to cardiac problem. We must all be active irrespective of our age. Physical activities have been shown to be of tremendous help in maintaining a healthy cardiovascular state. There is no age limit when it comes to physical activity. Just because a person ages does not mean he or she must become inactive. The older a person gets, the more important it is to remain as physically active as possible.

Studies have shown that “It is not good enough to exercise for 30 minutes a day and be sedentary for 23 and a half hours. Also, “Decreasing sitting hours is not a replacement for exercise, and exercise is not a replacement for sitting more. They are both important to do, and do more of.”   This is the key for prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

Source: The nation newspaper