I Won't Stand For It...But Maybe I Should

One pundit recently noted that the chair is this generation's cigarette. His or her point was that we are killing ourselves by sitting down so much. While not true across the board, I do believe we are far more sedentary than ever before, but how much does this hurt us? Dr. John Buckley of the University of Chester in England decided to study the effects of a reduction of the number of hours spent sitting in a day.
His was not the first such study, but his is definitely the most recent. Although he was hampered by a small sample size, it would seem that he has a reason to study further.
Statistics would seem to indicate that most of us spend about 12 hours a day sitting. If one adds that to an average of seven hours sleeping, we spend approximately 19 hours per day doing nothing. This is a problem since the pancreas regulates glucose levels in out bodies dependent on how active we are...and too much glucose is not a good thing. In a related point, it is being posited that even exercise cannot undo the damage we are doing by our sedentary ways. That remains to be researched, as far as I know.
Anyway, Buckley's experiment required 10 volunteers to spend at least three hours per day standing instead of sitting for a week. Levels were monitored by accelerometers, heart rate and glucose monitors. What researchers found was significant.
Those who stood had increased heart rates and greater body movement which accounted for an increase in heart rate of about 10 beats per minute. This statistic, off course, shows that calories were being burned: an estimated 150 per day. Of course, that doesn't seem like much, but it amounts to about 30,000 calories burned per year: equivalent, according to researchers, to running 10 marathons! In addition, the calories expended would amount to a savings of eight pounds of fat...win/win.
Just for fun, I will try to figure out how much I stand during the day...I'll bet it's not three hours.