Is Sitting Really The New Smoking?
PERSPECTIVE
Matthew Lieber
DC
You’ve likely read the headlines, warnings, and alarms telling us that sitting has now been linked to serious health risks.
Well, as quarterback Aaron Rodgers famously told a panicked Packer football nation after their second loss in 2014, “Relax! We are going to be okay.” So, what is the panic all about? What is at the heart of all these blogs, posts, and articles that suggest we’re in the middle of a significant and worsening health crisis? Where did this start? And, what is at the heart of promoting the wave of advice telling us we all need a ball chair, that ridiculously expensive “ergonomic” wonder chair, treadmill desk, tush support, lumbar wedge, or a standing desk with a new futuristic workstation?
Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic first posed the question in 1999, “Why do some people who consume the same amount of food as others gain weight?”
His study essentially added 1,000 calories per day to a group of people and—surprise-surprise—some people gained weight while others didn’t. Dr. Levine surmised that his research would find some biological marker acting as a differentiating agent between the two groups.
After several years of trials, he failed to find this magical marker.
Along the way, though, he noticed something curious.
When he electronically measured daily movement patterns of the participants, those who moved more gained less weight. They were not necessarily exercising more, but were more active with the smaller movements of daily life, measured by fidgeting, getting up and down more regularly from sitting, doing chores, etc. The final word from the study claimed that those who sat still greater than two hours per day above the mean were at a higher risk for weight gain than those who didn’t. The conclusion was that the more sedentary people are, the more likely they are to gain weight and therefore be at a higher risk for some health conditions. Shocking. Our healthcare research dollars at work.
I recently googled “sitting is the new smoking” and got 6.3 million hits, 2.3 million news articles, 2.5 million videos, and thousands of images, memes, and cartoons, most of which make claims that you are going to die from sitting. I browsed images of skulls as chairs, the poison icon, the “X’d-out” image, and even saw some made-up conditions, such as the “office syndrome,” while clicking through the menagerie. According to some of these scary articles and posts, you are at a 50% greater risk of mortality (whatever that means), a 90% greater risk for heart disease, and a 100% increase for diabetes. You’ll get kidney disease, varicose veins, sciatica, breast cancer in women, and colon cancer in men, all putting us $24 billion in the hole every year in healthcare costs. Oh my!
Who started this whole sitting thing? And how did we not know this was killing us? Well, I have only one word for all of you who are still reading—relax.
Even if I were not a healthcare provider, I would be familiar with the significant and serious risks of obesity, as I am sure you are. There is no debate that we are (as a nation and perhaps a planet) struggling with our weight. However, the fundamental question is whether or not sitting is killing us, and the answer is clearly no. There is no inherent risk to sitting. It is not dangerous, and it is not to be avoided.
So, why all the hubbub? How did we get from one clearly limited impact research article to where we are today? Why are there so many articles now saying that we are all doomed?
It’s like many things I have seen over time. A research study gets picked up by a “news site” and the marketingand financial-minded pounce on it as a potential new market, searching out new prospects to buy into the hype. We all would like to be healthier, fitter, live longer, and live pain-free. So it begins quietly and escalates as the marketplace fills up with ads and scare tactics to move products aimed at addressing these concerns, continuing until we have been satiated.
What is the answer then? How do we avoid the consequences of prolonged sitting? Should we get that fancy ball chair? Should we get that new, cool-looking standing station? Should we get that latest gadget that promises to be the final solution?
In my opinion, no. There is only one “magic pill” for this problem. Move.
Move throughout the day. Move in your seat. Change sitting positions. Get up frequently from your desk, your couch, your car. That will solve the sitting is the new smoking “panic” without any additional gadgets or gimmicks, which will damage your bottom line and not necessarily help your bottom.
Matthew J. Lieber, DC, C, is is an an o[ optimistic skeptic, Born with an innate gift for fixing the broken things of the world, he came to his chiropractic calling after a successful career as a structural and acoustical engineer. Decades of training in rigorous science and a compassion for easing others suffering compels him to speak out against the insane trend of misinformation and misunderstanding on the roots of health and healing He now provides hope and relief for a wide following in Bucks County, PA, providing sensible nutritional advice along with practical chiropractic and rehabilitative care.
Email: matthew@matthewlieber. com Web: www. matthewlieber. com
