By Mary Murphy
Rock Center
Americans sit more than ever before – at work, at school, even at play. Chained to your chair? Well, obesity expert Dr. James Levine calls that dangerous behavior. Like tobacco, he says, sitting is hazardous to your health.
“Sitting all day long is literally killing us,” claims Levine who treats obesity at the Mayo Clinic, one of the country's premiere research hospitals.
Levine’s research has turned conventional thinking about exercise on its head. Many think a dose of exercise is a perfect prescription for good health, but Levine’s research shows that a daily trip to the gym, while beneficial, can’t undo the damage done from sitting all day.
Click here to watch Natalie Morales and Dr. Levine's Google+ Hangout about the emerging health risk
“A few years ago, I would have actually said to you, you know, the person who's doing that session at the gym once a day is doing everything they need to do. But the data that are now coming up suggests that's not the case, “Levine told NBC News’ Natalie Morales in an interview airing Thursday, Jan. 10 on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams. “Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterwards or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin. It appears that what is critical and maybe even more important than going to the gym, is breaking up that sitting time.”
The way Dr. Levine describes it, sitting isn't pretty. The body’s metabolic engines go to sleep. The muscles stop moving all together and the heart slows. Then, the body's calorie-burning rate plummets to about one calorie per minute -- a third of what it would be if you were walking. Insulin effectiveness drops and the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes rises. Fat and cholesterol levels rise too.
“It is almost like sort of owning a really cool sports car and letting it idle all day long. The engine gets gunked up. That's what happens to our bodies. The body, as we know, simply isn't built to sit all day,” Levine said.
Levine figured this out in 1999 when he asked a simple question: if two people eat the same thing and do not exercise, why does one gain weight and not the other? To do his experiment, Levine needed to devise a way to get an accurate measurement. He designed special tracking gear with sensors attached. The read out became his EKG of how much a person moves and with how much exertion.
Once he interpreted his data, Levine made a key discovery in understanding obesity. How much a person moves is a big dividing line between who’s obese and who’s not.
“People who are lean, even who don't go to the gym, move about two and a quarter hours a day more than people with obesity, “ Levine learned. “Somehow those individuals are finding the opportunities to walk to the trashcan, to walk down to accounting, to go to the bathroom, or the coffee shop, whatever it may be. “
And people who fidget are actually in better shape than people who don’t.
“It's sort of the brain's signal to move. When you see somebody who's naturally fidgety, those fidgets are probably the propellants for them to get up and move,” said Levine of fidgeting.
While Levine says there is unquestionably “ a very significant genetic component” to obesity and that nutrition is very important, he also says: “We all live in the same society. We all have desks and chairs and sofas and Lazy Boy armchairs and TVs. We all have the same stuff. We all live in the same environment, but half of us have a weight problem and half of us don't. “
Worried if you're sitting too much? Mayo Clinic's 10 tips on how to burn calories at work.
The shifts from rural life to the city life, the car and computer revolutions, have all conspired to make us walk less and sit more, Levine argues.
”All of the sudden if you take that historical view of this, you realize we're living a completely different way to how we were designed. I mean it is inconceivable that we were ever going to be a group, a population, a species sitting on our bottoms all day long. We're just not meant to do that. So is it a surprise that the consequences are devastating? No,” Levine said.
Levine has some common sense solutions for people interested in improving their health by spending less time at their desks. Take a walk with a friend at lunchtime, have a walking meeting with a colleague, go the restroom that is farther away from your desk.
Ten years ago , Levine came up with the ultimate way to move more at work. He invented the treadmill desk. At first, he says, people thought he was crazy.
“When I first came up with idea, I was thought to be a complete lunatic. People were writing me, like, notes, and it was like… ‘Jim, you must be joking. Like are you out of your mind,’” he said
Levine consulted with a company to get the desk made, but receives no profit from its sales. So far, nearly 60,000 units have been sold.
But if there’s no treadmill desk in your future Levine has a simple solution: Get up for 10 minutes every hour.
Editor’s Note: Natalie Morales’ full report airs Thursday, Jan. 10 at 10pm/9CDT on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams.
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Lol....try using that line on your employer, see where it gets you.
Maybe a promotion. I used to encourage my office employees to get up walk around, go outside because I knew with added oxygen and a faster heart beat they would be less stressed, and work better. Some complained when I told them to walk to lunch instead of driving a block though.
Employers will get to be jerks for the next few years, but once this becomes accepted by the mainstream medical community, employers who force employees to remain seated for extended periods without breaks will be liable for both lawsuits and higher health and life insurance premiums for their employees. It would be like a company that requires you to smoke all day on the job as a condition of employment.
How about Office recess time? Everyone plays Nerf dart wars or something active, then back to work until next recess time.
Thank god I get up every hour and go outside to have a cigarette!
@Macdeezy: Love it.
Years ago, when I was at Dell (back when it was still fun) we would have "sword" fights in the cube farms. We used the cardboard rolls left over from the paper I used in the plotter.
Someone in my engineering group would get board, walk down to where I kept the rolls, grab a couple, and the fight was on between the two groups that shared our row. Some were pirates, some were Jedi, I demoted one of the younger engineers to Ninja Turtle when I broke his sword in half.
Damn fun.
Or maybe people who are thin have the energy to move all day, and fat people do not. Maybe our body has alot to say about how it partitions caloried into fat or energy. Maybe, just maybe, obesity is a hormonal phenomen caused by our sugary starchy diet and constant high insulin output.
Saying a person gets fat because they store more calories than they burn is a tautology. Is that why people go through puberty?
Or maybe it's because we sit on our asses all day at work like the article says.
I worked out 2-3 hours of heavy cardio a night after work, with one hour of weightlifting. I just kept getting fatter. I was in great shape physically but I looked (and still do) like an ever expanding blob. Every year since I started working in an office I've gained 10 lbs or a clothing size. And it's all around my waist.
After all that work with no visual results I had finally just given up. I saw doctors about maybe having diabetus or a thyroid problem but that checked normal.
I read this article and it all started to make sense. My job is killing me and there is nothing I can do about it.
We have adjustable height desks at work. Hopefully, as office furniture transitioned to make room for ergonomic chairs, we'll have a transition to ergonomic desks: adjustable height desks with or without a treadmill underneath.
I don't think the human race is as fragile as all that. Our bodies will evolve to fit our lifestyle. Of course in the meantime lots of people may die earlier than necessary, but everyone dies eventually.
According to the Internet, everything you do, eat, or think is killing you. Maybe that's why half the nation has panic attacks—this ubiquitous fear-mongering.
You nailed it! 'Ubiquitious fear-mongering'...anything to make headlines. To bad that it is the heart blood of politics.
If I'm not mistaken, aren't we living longer overall? Yet we don't seem to be doing anything right. This is one long ad for his treadmill.
Yes, over time evolutionary pressures will favor fidgeters, until the entire human race will be characterized by constant nervous tics.
Yes it worked for the walrus.
Our bodies are already evolving to our lifestyles. Obesity, Diabeties, poorer health, and shorter lifespans would be an adaption to the environment in the short term.
Long term adaptions would take several generations at the minimum, so maybe your great, great, great grandchildren will have slow as snail metabolisms, a spine with fewer segments, and vestigial limbs where their legs used to be. On the other hand, they might also have more or longer fingers and very fast and well developed thumbs along with being naturally near-sighted.
Ubiquitous fear mongering - they spew it and we swallow it. Our species has tendencies to believe anything we hear, read, or otherwise ingest.
Politics may be the worst of the spew. Mainstream media a close second. The fear and violence they feed us is how control is maintained. Were folks able to think for themselves the world might improve.
Of course another way would be for politicos and media to expand their story base to include all the good that is going on which far outweighs the stupidity that is reported almost exclusively.
Sorry for veering off topic. (Guess I'm admonishing myself too.)
That kind of evolution takes hundreds or thousands of generations. You won't live that long if you don't exercise.
Have you guys seen Wall-e? Well the population on board the Axiom describes it all.
I think it is halarious that we have become so paranoid about everything that some would say something as obvious as "sitting is bad for you" is fear mongering. American's are lagging far behind when it comes to mortality. You should be scared.
Pretty soon they'll recommend we stand on our heads on the treadmill, wave our legs and use our arms to walk. I respect man's ability to learn more and more every day, but there comes a point where one has to ask: Is this reasonable? To me it is not. I'm going to keep my comfy chair, make sure I get up and walk around on occasion and happily keel over probably sooner than later.
I have no idea of your physical condition; but I've heard that from people so heavy that they literally cannot walk anymore. well, no more than to get to mac's for another burger, or whatever. But when it gets down to knee replacements, hip replacements, sleep breathing machines, etc. etc. etc., then they are not so happy. Unfortunately, before they "happily keel over" they have put medicare back a buck or two.
@theoneandonly: Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway.
We can't all afford to quit our office jobs, and not all of us are agile enough to do physical labor. Some of us would drop hammers on our feet if we had to do physical labor. So stop the fear mongering, already.
I didn't see that the article said that you should do either of those things. It did say to get up and move around for 10 minutes out of every 60. Unless you're bedridden you can do that much right?
physically most of us could do it, but try to tell the GM where I work that the 8 hour work day just got reduced to 6 hrs 40 min... it will take a LONG time before this is accepted.
I'm sure most of us could do better (at least out of the chair for 3 or 4 min per hour) without getting "busted", but over 15% of every hour? Nope.
It's likely that there getting less work than that out of most people now what with responding to articles on News Vine and all. So use that time to get up for 10 minutes. Go to the bathroom, walk around with a notepad, go get a single paperclip every hour.
I see an alarming number of people making excuses for why they can't get a little exercise.
Wow who cares. Live happy. Fat or thin our time is always limited.
It's those fatties that are helping more than their share to shrink medicare, medicaid, whatever. Fine, live happy, get obese. I don't care. I just don't want to pay for it out of my medicare $.
The scammers have a hand in it as well.
I'd rather be dead than get off my ass...
Doesn't this potentially mean that OSHA needs to get involved? Seriously! - RC
Possibly some (caring) businesses could schedule an extra hour a day for their employees, to be broken up into 6 ten minute exercise periods for 6 of the 8 hours. The other 2 hours would rely upon getting to work and going home for exercise. - RC
(It will probably make their employees more productive, too!) - RC
(I believe with all my heart in a "BETTER WORLD !!!", and I believe I have a practical solution for any problem in our world.)
When we were a country with vast amounts of manufacturing, we polluted our environment. Now that we are a 'service' industry, we caged the 'pollution' up in cubes.
Damn do i envy the UPS guys and gals!
Can't eat or drink or sit or work.....LOL. Oh yeah, I forgot breath.
We might as well die.
So, there's no point in exercising unless we buy Dr. James Levine's miracle treadmill desk....yeag, right....
Exactly my thoughts, Jango!
I knew he was selling something!
I work from home, at my computer. I don't really do this on purpose, but I keep the phone in the kitchen, as well as my glass of cold water. This causes me to hop up and trot to the other room to answer the phone, or to get a drink. I didn't set it up that way consciously, but it works for me! I need the "hop up" time. Sitting too long just doesn't feel right!
Bogus. Too many factors can contribute to the obesity. I know people that work in warehouses and are on their feet 80% of the day that are overweight. Oh and it works for those that work office jobs in the military. Daily exercise can keep you fit just fine. Even if you are stuck at you desk all day. So that can counter the argument easily.
Genes determine how long you will live. Exercise does not alter what you are. Exercise will not necessarily make you smarter or stronger. You may do it excessively and get an enlarged heart. What and how much you eat and drink is more important than how much you sweat. Olympians do not live longer or healthier than the spectators who watch them. Stay mildly obese and you will live longer. 3500 calories equals a pound of weight. You would have to run a marathon to lose a pound. A wasteful activity if I ever heard of one.
Not true, CJ - my husband is fit and healthy at age 56, because he watches his weight and exercises regularly. Both of his parents, by his age, were obese and suffering from diabetes. My own father was dead at age 40 from complications of a genetic disease, which I also have. I'm healthy at age 55, partly because of good luck, but also because I'm vigilant about taking medications to manage my condition. If you don't feel like exercising, CJ, that's up to you - but it DOES help folks stay healthy. Sounds like you're justifying your own laziness.
It's just amazing what people will do to avoid taking responsibility for their own health. They want the "silver bullet", the diet pill, surgery, etc. etc. while they sit on their duff with their bon bons watching t.v.
Actually exercise does make you smarter and stronger, studies have proven exactly that. Please go read a book and stop commenting.
3500 calories breaks down into 500 per day. A can of coke is 250, and 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer is 250. No marathon necessary, CJ.
I do have a standing desk (yes, I was one of the early ones to jump on this trend), and I still know as a fact from portable fitness devices and calorie monitoring that I burn quite a few less calories on work days than on non-work days and would tend to still eat as many or more calories on work days, and that's even with a few workout sessions during the week. I now try to compensate by being even more active and eating less on work days which seems to be the balance I needed and I'm now losing those extra pounds that still crept up on me and am determined to get to and maintain a healthy weight for the long term. It's definitely a lot easier for me to gain than to lose a pound and learning how hard and how long I had to work out to burn off just one donut was a real eye opener.
By my calculation, sitting at work would by reducing my calories and metabolism amount to about 200-300 calories a day, which over time would be a weight gain of about a pound every few weeks. Depending on your physiology, sitting all day could put you in a continual weight gain cycle of 10-20 pounds a year or so, which is actually consistent with what many people simply accept as the normal weight gain attributed to aging.
Instead of motivating me, this article is more likely to make me give up! I mean, I really enjoy two glasses of red wine every evening. But I feel guilty drinking it because health experts say only ONE glass for women. What's the point of that? I like a little buzz, and one glass doesn't cut it for me. My eating habits are a bit different. I normally just "graze" on mostly healthy stuff like almonds, yogurt, baby carrots, apples, string cheese, salad, etc. (very little meat). But I also love Cheezit crackers with my wine. So I have to feel guilty about both the wine and the crackers? I don't smoke, I'm not overweight, my blood pressure is low, I don't need medication for cholesterol.
Really, please let me ENJOY life a little! If it shortens my life by a few years I can live with that. What's a few years when people have been dying for centuries! I'll eventually end up with everyone else who's dead! And I won't care a bit at that point!
I, too, find that I cannot sit at my desk for hours on end without getting up a few times a day and moving around a bit. This treadmill desk seems a bit much, but if there is a demand for it and people find it to be helpful and useful, then I say go for it. If something like that inspires even a few people to change some of their lifestyle habits for the better, then why not?
I just find myself feeling like I've got to get my blood flowing, so to speak, and getting up and walking around a bit. Walking down the block to get lunch, for instance, actually wakes me up more and refreshes me for the next hour or two once I'm back at my desk working.
I don't think we are so fragile, as some other posters have commented. I just think that our bodies were designed for more mobility and motion than many of us currently get. It's so easy to hop in the car to go anywhere we want, and we can reach the entire world from our desks. You can order anything and everything from your computer and have it brought right to your door and the longest walk you take to get it is 10 feet. I love technology, don't get me wrong, I just see how so many things have become so easy that we tend to forget how much we used to get incidental exercise just from having to go to the post office for stamps or to the mall where we would walk for a mile or two while shopping and not even realize it.
I also have gone between working in an office to taking three years away and working in a restaurant nights and weekends when my daughter was small. When she went to school, I went back to sitting at a desk and I noticed my clothes becoming tighter within a month or two. I don't eat any differently than I did before...I'm just burning less calories and feeling the difference. I also find that even though I may have been exhausted after working a 12 hour shift on my feet, I have less energy now on a regular basis then I used to.
I agree. I get caught up in what I'm doing at work (especially if no one elses is in the office) and can sit for hours and not really notice. Yikes!
So, I invested in a $2 piece of technology that does the trick -- a cooking timer that goes off every hour. I set it ... when it buzzes, I go for a short walk, sit back down and reset the time.
I doubt it's doing much for keeping weight off, but it does a lot for not being so stiff and sore at the end of the day.
Two years ago, I thought I was going to need a hip replacement the pain got so bad. When I changed my work station to a standing one, my hip pain disappeared completely. You burn more calories and you will generally feel better when you stand at work instead of sit.
good for you! I am curious, why did you change to a standing work station, instead of hip replacement? It's very hard to find anyone (doctor) who will go against surgery and offer a solution that ïs FREE! and easy, and noninvasive. I had a similar experience awhile back. back pain so bad, and come to find out, it was caused by hunching over a monitor! Just put the monitor up about a foot, and within a few weeks, almost all back pain gone.
So walking on a treadmill in stripper high heel shoes is good for your health then? Just watch the video and ask Natalie and the doctor how idiotic that seems to be.
Definitely don't need to watch the video to know that's just not smart LOL. Although don't strippers usually wear those ridiculously high heels when they dance? I'm sure that's quite a workout, and probably much harder to do than just walking.
I'd invest in some nice flats if I was being given a treadmill desk. Or ask about the company policy regarding wearing sneakers to work :)
16 years ago I had a 12 hr work day managing a 30 person office. I typed, copied, talked on the phone, and walked aound in circles all day (office was in a round tower!) meeting with and overseeing all the staff. I had no breakfast or lunch and subsisted on cigarettes, sodas, and candy bars. I was also healthy and the only health issue I had was hay fever.
Then I moved to a much smaller town and a much less stressful job. I had time for breakfast and lunch, quit smoking, and cut out most of the sodas. However for the last 16 years I have been sitting during the entire work day, answering phones and typing. The square footage in the office can be covered in a minute. End result - weight gain plus a brand new problem within the last two years. I now have tingling and numbness in my legs, plus the occasional loss of strength in one of my legs when walking. Seems I have some kind of nerve issue in my lower back. (Surprise!) The doctor put me in physical therapy and I have my phone set to alarm every hour to remind me to get up and walk around. If my boss asks about the new activity, I'll remind him that a healthy employee is out fewer days!
I wish I had gone for the stand-up desk a few years ago. Do they make one for a desk top computer and phone?
Yes ... they actually make attachments for your existing desk too!
google: Ergotron’s Standing Desk Mount
Be sure your monitor is at eye level!!
Drive through banks, drive through bakeries, drive through starbucks. You can even order your groceries online and have them delivered to your car. I have seen the future and the future is Wall-e. People just don't want to get off of their butts!
You know what doctor--you are wrong--excercising does help. And nobody sits down for 9 hours straight. OMFG Everyday there is some crackpot coming out with a study.
Use your common sense. If you have been sitting down for a couple hours--go up and down some stairs. Go for a walk.
And finally, it is not right to sit there and say were are all doomed. People have had desk jobs for a long time and people still live to ripe old ages. So, please save your hysteria.
he wasn't selling his treadmill
I think a lot of people don't want to be responsible for their own health. I once had a cardiac event that had me in the hospital, getting an angioplasty. This was a wake-up call for me, yet a lot of heart patients I met in the hospital had the attitude that "Why should I give up my cigar or my drink or my T-bones? If I have a problem with my 'plumbing' I'll get a doc to fix me up." Well, my attitude was just the opposite. After discharge I began a daily exercise routine, I became a semi-vegetarian and ate lots of fruits and vegetables and said good-bye to beef. I've already outlived my Dad by 7 years and I hope to be around a good deal longer. You can train your food tastes, and you can adopt a healthful lifestyle, and I'm glad I did. Want to die early, or later but in a wheelchair? Then ignore all the advice of cardiologists and nutritionists and "do your thing," it's your choice.
Good for you! I know that your lifestyle is a much better alternative to following in your dad's footsteps!
It's not hysteria, it's data. Hysteria would indicate there's some element of untruth or exaggeration. He's presenting data. He's not making any money on the treadmill and the article says so. To deny a sedentary lifestyle contributes to health problems is to ignore reality. Of course it varies from person to person and job to job. Our life expectancy in the U.S. is nothing to brag about.
THose HUUUGE BIG sodas that people drink also contribute to the vast majority of obesity America is suffering... not to mention the lazy mentallity of a selfish , obese fat person who willingly makes the rest of us suffer due to their incompetence. There comes a certain mentality with people who are obese.. generally are unaware of how they wreak havoc on the health care system , not to mention the awareness of the environment and what you consume and throw in the trash is what you are! Meditate, fast and try yoga is you want to gain some awareness of how your consumption is literally killing you and the environment.
Well, of course, because now you can sit longer before having to get up to refill said super-sized beverage. One hand washes the other, so to speak. There's something to be said for the days when you'd have to get up to change the channel on the TV.
Obese people are actually overall less expensive to the healthcare system than healthy people, simply because they die sooner.
www.nestdesk.com