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We know that spending hours after hours sitting is not good, but how much exercise is needed to counter the negative health impact of a day at the desk? A new study suggests that about 30-40 minutes a day of sweating should do this.
Up to 40 minutes of “moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity” each day is about the right amount to balance 10 hours of still sitting, research says, although any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some degree. .
This is based on a meta-analysis of nine previous studies, which involved a total of 44,370 people in four different countries who wore some form of fitness tracker.
The analysis found that the risk of death among people with a more sedentary lifestyle increased with decreasing time spent engaging in moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity.
“In active individuals who perform approximately 30-40 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity, the association between high sedentary time and risk of death is not significantly different from those with low sedentary times,” the researchers write in their article published.
In other words, doing some reasonably intense activities – bicycling, brisk walking, gardening – can reduce the risk of premature death down to what it would be if you didn’t do all that sitting, to the extent that this link can be seen in the accumulated data of many thousands of people.
While meta-analyzes like this always require an elaborate blend of separate studies with different volunteers, times and conditions, the advantage of this particular piece of research is that it was based on relatively objective data from wearable devices, not self-reported data from participants.
The study comes in parallel with the publication of the World Health Organization 2020 Global Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior, collected by 40 scientists on six continents. The British Journal of Sports Medicine (BHSM) has published a special edition to bring both the new study and the new guidelines.
“These guidelines are very timely, as we are in the midst of a global pandemic, which has locked people indoors for long periods and encouraged an increase in sedentary behavior,” says physical activity and population health researcher Emmanuel Stamatakis. of the University of Sydney in Australia.
“People can still protect their health and offset the harmful effects of physical inactivity,” says Stamatakis, who was not involved in the meta-analysis but is the co-editor of the BJSM. “As these guidelines point out, all physical activity counts and any amount of it is better than nothing.”
Research based on fitness trackers is broadly in line with new WHO guidelines, which recommend 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity each week to counteract sedentary behavior.
Climbing stairs instead of taking the elevator, playing with children and pets, taking part in yoga or dancing, doing housework, walking, and cycling are all ways people can be more active – and if you can. ‘ ‘”Handle the 30-40 minutes now,” the researchers say, start small.
Making recommendations for all ages and all body types is tricky, even if the 40-minute time frame for activity fits the previous research. As more data is published, we should learn more about how to stay healthy even if we have to spend extended periods of time at the desk.
“Although the new guidelines reflect the best science available, there are still some gaps in our knowledge,” says Stamatakis. “We are not yet clear, for example, where exactly the limit is for ‘too much sitting’. But this is a hectic research field and we hope to have answers in a few years.”
The research was published here, and the new guidelines here, in British Journal of Sports Medicine.
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