Is Your Health At Risk?
Common health risk factors and a self assessment tool to help you understand and reduce your health risks.
With so many advances in technology, our lifestyles are changing, and as a result, we’re spending a lot more time sitting down – also called ‘being sedentary’ – at home, at work and while travelling.
When you think about our daily routine, once we get up in the morning, we: sit down to have breakfast, sit down in the car on the way to work, sit down at work all day, drive home, eat dinner sitting down, and then sit on the couch to watch tv or surf the internet. That’s a lot of sitting down.
Research shows that time spent sitting can lead to:
In fact, it’s been shown that if we watch less than two hours of television a day, we can reduce the likelihood of developing these risk factors listed above.
Research shows that even if you are “physically active” (which means you do 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity on most, if not all, days of the week), you can then further increase your health benefits by sitting less during the day.
Are you really? Let’s say you sleep eight hours per day, the remaining 16 hours are typically filled with domestic and work duties.
Have a look at this example.
Total time sitting: 13 hrs 45 mins.
Research suggests that no matter what your total sitting time is, regular interruptions from sitting (even just by standing up) may help to reduce your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.
Sitting at a desk or driving can be a large part of many peoples work routine. So here are some simple ideas of how you can sit less and move more throughout the day.