My last blog focussed on wether weekend warriors and athletes alike should choose sports drinks or water after a workout. After I did some research, sports drinks were found to be the best option based on tests done by Professor Kenney at Penn State. Also, throughout, I used critical thinking to show why sports drinks would be a better choice. As I searched the web for a topic related to the sports world for this post I came upon something that is not necessarily related to sports but is related to our health. And until I researched it I did not even know it was this big of a deal.
Ladies and gentleman there is an epidemic sweeping across the nation that greatly influences obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancers. And as I sit here in the library typing away I can look u
p and at a glance can see over fifty people, myself included, doing it. If you have not yet figured out what I am talking about yet the answer is….. sitting! Thats right, folks, sitting. Something we do every single day of our lives. In fact, Penn State professor of kinesiology and human development David E. Conroy states(1) that we spend eight hours a day sitting, and that does not include time spent sleeping. When we study we are sitting, when we watch television we are sitting, when we eat we are sitting, and if you sleep eight hours a day(2) you have spent sixteen of the days twenty-four hours sitting (2/3 of a day). All of this sitting adds up and in the end being sedentary is a direct cause of diseases that include diabetes and obesity.
According to Conroy(1), the minimal amount of activity our bodies and large muscles experience while sitting causes energy metabolism(3) to decrease. Energy metabolism is the bodies process of generating energy from nutrients. As stated, large amounts of sitting can cause a slower metabolism. This leads to fewer calories being burned and can influence the chances of disease.
This shows that sitting is one of the many causes of said diseases stated above. But, sitting is a preventable problem. If we humans cut out, lets say, three hours of sitting a day the chances of said diseases being obtained would be lower. In my opinion there is no doubt that large amounts of sitting and these diseases being contracted is strictly causal. Think about it, if moving around and being active increases the metabolism rate what would sitting and being inactive do? Its not too hard to figure out. Not all people who sit this often will get diabetes or cancer, but sitting for these prolonged periods does nothing but increase the chances. So how about it, lets all get up, get out, and get active. Is it all that hard to just get up and move around? What are your opinions on sitting and the diseases that could come into your life because of it?
Sources:
1). http://news.psu.edu/story/295260/2013/11/14/research/probing-question-sitting-bad-your-health
2). http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/adult-sleep-needs-and-habits
3). http://www.nature.com/subjects/energy-metabolism
4-5 pictures
4.) http://rare.us/story/possible-fat-gene-discovered/
5.) http://writeontrackla.com/2010/08/excuses-excuses/
I agree, Connor. Like I said in my blog, we sit for 2/3 of our day. I believe that this is because our life is centered around sitting. Adults sit when they work, students sit when they study, and now children sit when they play video games. The only way to prevent the trend of sitting is to instill the idea in children that they need to be more active.
The most important question I have about this post is exactly how much should people reduce their sitting each day in order to remove the risk of developing harmful conditions? I realize that sitting excessively could obviously cause some issues, however, I think that the fact that people cannot spend a large amount of time on their feet is pretty upsetting, especially if their job involves sitting. Though our ancestors were built to run, surely they couldn’t have been on their feet nearly all day!
I always knew that standing burned calories. I also knew that sitting all the time could be somewhat harmful. Sitting does nothing good for the body. It makes you have bad posture, and obviously you are not being active.