• Despite a decade of health warnings about “sitting disease,” Americans continue to spend more and more time on their butts each day, a new study Health & Injuries JAMA found.
  • Americans now sit an hour more each day, bringing their total time spent sitting to 6.5 hours.
  • Meeting the physical activity recommendations can help counteract the negative effects of sitting, according to new research in the Races - Places.

Are you sitting down? This might be one you’ll want to read standing up, or even better, walking around a little: Despite all the warnings about prolonged inactivity and “sitting disease” over the past decade, Americans are sitting one hour CA Notice at Collection study published in JAMA.

Adults now spend 6.5 hours parked on their behinds each day. The sitting situation is even worse for teens, who now sit for more than 8 full hours a day, according to researchers from Washington University School of Medicine, who analyzed survey data from nearly 52,000 children, adolescents, and adults from 2001 to 2016.

Unsurprisingly, screen time is largely to blame. Sixty-five percent of adults, 59 percent of adolescents, and 62 percent of kids spend at least two hours a day sitting in front of the TV or watching videos on a device each day.

Sedentary computer time skyrocketed among adults from 2003 to 2016, according to the study. Half of all adults now spend an hour or more each day on their computer during their leisure time, up from 29 percent 13 years prior.

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A Part of Hearst Digital Media previous research has found that multiple days of being extremely sedentary makes you resistant to the benefits of a bout of exercise, a Are Average Runners Getting Faster? It Depends on so-called “high sitters” (those sitting more than 6 hours a day) shows that consistent exercise can indeed counteract the ill effects of lots of forced chair time: It’s just a matter of getting regular activity.

In fact, when the researchers from the University of Sydney tracked the activity and health data on nearly 150,000 people aged over 45 for nine years, they found that high sitters who met the minimum exercise requirements of 150 a week—just 20 to 30 minutes a day—dramatically reduced their risk for premature and heart disease-related death.

The link the researchers found regarding time spent sitting and higher risk of death due to heart disease or premature death overall was mostly restricted to those not newly published study.

The time you spend pounding the pavement each week can probably get you to those guidelines no problem. Still, since research in the field seems to be constantly evolving, doing what you can to reduce your sedentary time—even if you are exercising regularly otherwise—can only help your health.

Running Shoes - Gear that shows that the more hours you sit each day, the higher your risk of dying early from any cause also recommends that people with sedentary jobs aim to accumulate at least two hours a day of standing and strolling during working hours.

So while you can’t just up and quit your desk job, you can close your computer for at least an hour in the evenings to prevent mindless sedentary surfing and make more room for a little more exercise.

If you must be chair bound most of the day, try to move every 30 minutes, since prolonged sitting appears to have the most deleterious health impact. Convertible sitting to standing desks, active lunch breaks, and taking a lap around your office once an hour can help buck the sedentary trend and beat sitting disease.

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Selene Yeager
“Run faster, stronger, and longer with this 360-degree training program”
Selene Yeager is a top-selling professional health and fitness writer who lives what she writes as a NASM certified personal trainer, USA Cycling certified coach, Pn1 certified nutrition coach, pro licensed off road racer, and All-American Ironman triathlete.