More on the Dangers of Sitting, and Company Policies on Obese Employees
Think of Every Chair as the Electric Chair, Only a Lot Slower
From researchers at the University of South Carolina, via a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, comes further evidence that prolonged periods spent sitting doing nothing can, in fact, kill you.
Specifically, the researchers found that men who spent more than 23 hours a week sitting — in their cars, watching TV, reading, etc. — had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than men who spent just 11 or fewer weekly hours being stationary.
And that’s just the bad news. Here’s the worse news: Heart disease was linked to prolonged sitting just as strongly for men who led active lifestyles and exercised regularly when not sitting. In short, even frequent physical workouts are no protection against the “sitting” effect. The more you sit, the worse for your ticker.
So what is one to do if one’s occupation, hobbies or favorite recreation involves spending hours on end warming a chair, bench or stool? Exercise scientists suggest: anything. Anything, however brief, to break up those long sedentary stretches with some physical activity every half hour or so. Stand up, do some deep knee bends or torso flexes, walk around the room, go get coffee, do a chore. Whatever gets you out of your chair and upright.
Just keep reminding yourself that the more you remain motionless today, the sooner you could be motionless for keeps.
For the Seriously Corpulent Worker, It’s a Good Boss, Bad Boss World
Two recent news items serve to illustrate the broadly divergent ways in which employers relate to those employees who may be greatly overweight or obese, a situation that is becoming a recurrent topic in the media.
On the “good guys” end of the spectrum, South Carolina legislators, clearly alarmed by the fact that obesity rates in the state have doubled since 1990 and that obesity-related illnesses now cost South Carolinians more than $1 billion a year, will begin offering obese state employees surgery at no cost. The procedures, which essentially reduce the capacity of the stomach and cost about $24,000 each, will be available as part of a trial program for the first 100 obese applicants for whom it is deemed medically advisable.
In other parts of the world, the attitude of company execs is rather less accommodating. Flight attendants working for Turkish Airlines and for Air Arabia, for example, have been given three to six months to lose weight and get fit or face “reassignment,” which is code for grounding, a career-crippler. How they manage to lose the weight is their problem.
The airlines cited the need for flight crew members to move about easily, and, in an emergency, quickly and efficiently, which seems reasonable. But aviation experts noted that such an edict would be unthinkable in America because, noted one, it is “forbidden to discriminate against someone because of their weight.”
Perhaps more to the point, commented another expert, “This would never work in the United States, where the body mass index of the passengers and attendants is higher than anywhere else in the world.” In other words: futile.
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):
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