A surprising story has come out from the Mayo Clinic declaring that sitting all day is as dangerous as smoking. Even more surprising is the fact that being a regular exerciser does not erase the effects of sitting too much. Lots of exercise does not negate the effects of smoking, and neither does it cancel out the effects of sitting. The researcher, Dr. James Levin, found that nine hours of sitting on the job, whether you are obese or thin, fit or unfit, can be a lethal disease trigger. In a world where technology is lending to long commutes and office jobs being king, sitting can lead to early death as much as smoking does.
Studies indicate that health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are a bigger risk to extended sitters due to miniscule calorie burning and the fall of enzymes that help rid your arteries of lipids and triglycerides while upping good cholesterol levels. The human body was created to move during waking hours, and extended sitting brings tight and overstretched muscles. People either have active jobs and become couch potatoes once they are off work or they have inactive jobs and get in a daily sweat session of at least sixty minutes. Neither individual is less at risk than the other. One cannot ride a bike 40 miles or run a 10K and hope that it will not hurt them to sit in the nearest lounge chair or office chair for the remainder of the day. In fact, such a person will be more prone to injury in addition to the disease already discussed.
In the interest of individual and work safety, get up and move often. Since most offices are not going to purchase treadmill work stations, it is in the interest of healthy employees to allow them to get up and move for as little as a couple of minutes at a time. If an individual, on the job and off the job, takes short walk breaks throughout the day, risks go down for disease and injury. This is good for productivity, health, and reducing health costs in our modern world.