Better Health & Living: Article: Stand Up, Twin Cities

Issue: March 2008

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Stand Up, Twin Cities

by Susan Flagg Godbey

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WELCOME to your first edition of Better Health & Living! Please stand…

No, we’re not saluting. But I’d like you to stand and take a few steps—or just shift your weight a bit—while you read this because the fact that most of us spend our workdays sitting down is a major health threat. Yes, our office chairs may hold us in a gentle embrace while we tap the keys of our computers and give our brains a workout. But this kind of sitting is punishing us to a lifetime—a shortened lifetime—of overweight and chronic disease.

More than 50 years ago, British researchers found that when they compared the heart health of bus drivers and train conductors, who experience similar levels of stress, the bus drivers had three times the rate of coronary artery blockage and more than double the rate of death after a heart attack. And the only real difference between them is that the bus drivers had their buns in a seat all day while conductors were constantly on their feet.

Other studies on what is now being called “sitting disease” have found that those of us who are chained to our chairs are more likely to be overweight and to have metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms including fat around the waist, high levels of blood fats, and high blood pressure, that can lead to diabetes and heart attack. We’re also more likely to be depressed.

This is why we asked our favorite fitness trainer, Selene Yeager, to come up with some ways we can all get our butts in gear to avoid—and undo—some of the damage caused by our sedentary ways. You can read all about them in our article “Desk Jockey Cures”. Better yet, try them. Clip out and post the pages above your computer screen or on your cubicle wall within sight and let them nag you like a dog with a leash in its mouth to get out of your chair.

For those of us serving the sitting sentence, my favorite finding in this article—from the Mayo Clinic—is that fidgeting burns calories. So if you have to stay in your chair from 9 to 5, jiggle your feet, drum on the desk, and let your head bob to some hidden beat. Your coworkers might think you’re a little strange, but you can tell them smugly that you’re working out.

‘Til next time,
chair
Susan Flagg Godbey