The study, which involved more than 3,700 men and women in Finland, found that many exercised properly for half an hour, but then sat, almost nonstop, for another 10, 11, or even 12 hours a day. These were the active couch potatoes in the study, and their blood sugar, cholesterol, and body fat were elevated.
But the study also found that men and women who got up and moved a little more often, either by walking lightly or exercising more, were substantially healthier than active couch potatoes.
The results tell us that a single 30-minute daily workout “might not be enough” to alleviate the disadvantages of prolonged sitting, said Vahid Farrahi, a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Oulu and lead author of the new study.
In other words, if we exercise but also sit the rest of the day, it’s almost as if we didn’t exercise at all.
The good news is that a few simple steps, literal and otherwise, should protect us from becoming couch potatoes.
The dangers of being sedentary
The World Health Organization and other experts advise us moderate exercise for at least 30 minutes most days of the week. A brisk walk counts as moderate exercise.
Substantial scientific evidence shows that this half hour of exertion improves our health, spirit, and life expectancy. The problem is how we spend the remaining 23 and a half hours of the day.
“Only in the last five years have we begun to understand that physical activity is not the whole story,” said Raija Korpelainen, a professor of exercise for health at the University of Oulu in Finland and a co-author of the new study.
In the past, most research examined sitting and exercise separately, and tended to ignore or downplay light activities like going to the mailbox or getting another cup of coffee.
So for the new study, which was published in July in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Korpelainen and his co-authors drew on a vast amount of data on almost all children born in northern Finland decades ago. As they grew older, the researchers tracked their lives and health, and after the group became adults, they asked 3,702 of them to wear a scientific-grade activity tracker for at least a week.
The researchers were able to see, in six-second increments, whether someone was sitting, taking a light stroll, or doing formal exercise throughout the day. Because the trackers were measuring movement, standing counted as inactivity, just like sitting. With that data, they characterized people, bluntly, by how they moved.
Active couch potatoes, who made up nearly a third of the group, sat the longest, lounging for more than 10 hours a day. They met the recommended exercise guidelines: They got about 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily. But after that they he rarely got up, accumulating less than 220 minutes of light movement daily.
Another group also exercised for 30 minutes and sat for long hours. But, in between, they often got up and walked around. Compared to active couch potatoes, they spent about 40 percent more time — nearly 90 extra minutes each day — in what the researchers call “light activity.”
A third group sat, uninterrupted, for up to 10 hours, but also racked up about an hour of exercise on most days.
The final group, which the researchers correctly dubbed “the movers,” did just that, exercising for about an hour most days, while also moving slightly for about two hours longer than the active group of couch potatoes.
When the researchers matched these groups with people’s current health data, the active couch potatoes had the worst profiles for blood sugar control, body fat percentage, and cholesterol.
The other groups were all better off to the same extent, with relatively improved control of blood sugar and cholesterol levels and about 8 percent less body fat than active couch potatoes, even when the researchers they controlled for income, smoking, sleep habits and others. factors
The lesson from the research is that in addition to vigorous training, we need move lightly and frequently, clean, climb stairs, walk in the halls or not sit still. The sweet spot in this study involved about an additional 80 to 90 minutes of light activity, “but any additional movement should be beneficial,” Farrahi said.
You can also try getting a little more exercise. In this study, people benefited if they doubled their workouts to 60 minutes total. But again, “do what you can,” Korpelainen said. Just adding an extra 10 or 15 minutes to a daily walk will matter, she said, even if you don’t get an hour of exercise.
“The goal is to spend less time sitting,” said Matthew Buman, a professor at Arizona State University in Tempe who studies movement and metabolism but was not part of the new study. “Each of us can decide what is the best way to get there.”
This study has limitations. It only analyzes the life of people at a certain moment. It also involved Finns, most of them Caucasian and all somewhat active, who may not be representative of the rest of us, and did not include a completely sedentary comparison group.
Still, “it should prompt us to think about how we spend our time,” Buman said, and perhaps reconfigure our lives and spaces so that we move more. “Try putting the printer and recycling bins in another room,” he suggested, “so you have to get up and walk there.”
“I like to remind myself to go and look out the window often,” Farrahi said. “Solutions don’t have to be intimidating,” he continued. “Keep it simple. Try to move more, however you can, whenever you can and in the way you enjoy.”
Do you have a fitness question? Email [email protected] and we may answer your question in a future column.
