Better Health & Living: Article: Sentenced To The Chair

Issue: May 2008

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Sentenced To The Chair

by Susan Flagg Godbey

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If you’re doing most office jobs these days, you’re stuck in sit position, like a puppy being disciplined. Unfortunately, no one’s taking you for regular walks. Yes, your chair may be super-comfy, holding you in a gentle embrace while you tap away at your keyboard and give your brain a workout. But this kind of sitting is punishing you with a lifetime—a shortened lifetime—of overweight and chronic disease.

More than 50 years ago, British researchers found that when they compared the heart health of bus drivers and train conductors, who experience similar levels of stress, the bus drivers had three times the rate of coronary artery blockage and more than double the rate of death after a heart attack. And the only real difference between them was that the bus drivers had their buns in a seat all day while conductors were constantly on their feet.

Other studies on what is now being called sitting disease have found that those of us who are chained to our chairs are more likely to be overweight and to have metabolic syndrome, a collection of symptoms that includes fat around the waistline, high levels of blood fats, and high blood pressure, which can lead to diabetes and heart attack. We’re also more likely to be depressed. Tell me about it.

This is why we asked our favorite fitness chick, Selene Yeager, to come up with some ways we can all get our butts in gear to avoid—and undo—some of the damage caused by our sedentary ways. You can read about them in our pull-out poster, “Desk Jockey Cures,” in this issue. Better yet, try them. Tack the poster above your computer screen or to your cubicle wall and let it nag you like a dog with a leash in its mouth. As I’m writing this, I’m taking a couple of minutes to do the “De-huncher,” which I hope will keep me from looking like Quasimodo after a really bad day in the bell tower. Some of our staff are now using “heel mail”—going to actually talk to other human beings face to face instead of just e-mailing. What a novel idea.

But for those of us serving the sitting sentence, my favorite finding—from the Mayo Clinic—is that fidgeting burns calories. So if you have to stay in your chair (for example, your editor’s note is late, and someone is at your office door giving you the evil eye), jiggle your feet, drum on the desk, and let your head bob to some inner beat. Your coworkers may think you’re a little strange, but you can tell them smugly that you’re working out.

‘Til next time,
chair
Susan Flagg Godbey