I was at an event yesterday with Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer.

Among many rather insightful and frightening things we discussed was this fact. He was pushed for more information, and the reasearch is apparently very clear, almost at the stage where they can say a day sat in school or office desk is the same a smoking a pack of fags.

For me in Education, this has massive ramifications of Health and Wellbeing outcomes for kids.
I could see (and so could CMO) the day soon where companies will *have* to get folk to get up and walk around during the sedentary day.

Discuss.

An integral part of my UK working day used to be going to get a drink every hour, the primary purpose was to stop me killing my colleagues but a good walk out was always good. The distance to the coffee shop varied by who was in the office

Interesting. How much sitting v movement constitutes a sedentary day?

To add if I’ve spent all day sitting I’ll stand when I get to the pub

agree with the principle, but statements like

a day sat in school or office desk is the same a smoking a pack of fags

are just nonsense, sorry 😯

@yak

Apparently the interplay of not doing 30mins excercise 3-4 times a week COMBINED with sitting for a full working day and evening (not moving four a couple of hours at a time) is a real killer.

@iainc – the effect on life expectancy is similar apparently.

Well, isn’t this a well know fact of life ? But what is sedentary, what does that mean ?

If, for instance, its ringfencing all those who sit at office desks all day, do a 15min walk to the loo once in a while, so capturing quite a few who do not put any kind of physical stress on thier bodies. Is it this group ? Well I’ve come across many like that in my years of working.
However…
I never hear them moan about aches and pains gained from exercising, never hear them moan whilst getting in/out of the office chair, never grumble about the 120k ride and the subsequent tired legs at the weekend, never hear them discussing injuries related to crashes or tumbles.

It’s us fit folks I worry about, we’re always grumbling and moaning.

#prayforfitfolks

Bugger. Presumably lumping all your 30mins of exercise into one big Sunday ride doesn’t count?

What we need to invent is a device you can wear on your wrist that track how many steps you do in a day and set a target for people. I reckon it would sell pretty well.

I’ve a colleague who claims that the benefit of the walk to go for his fag break outweighs the damage done by the fag. Makes you think.

A consultant told us that when an elderly person spends a week in hospital they age ten years in terms of losing muscle tone and the will to get on with life. My MIL certainly did; she was happy to sit back, be waited on and attended to and enjoy the craic of a busy ward. When she came out she had more or less stopped walking so we had to fill the house with hoists and all kinds of paraphernalia.

@iainc – the effect on life expectancy is similar apparently.

so the average sedentary non smoker could get active 4 days a week, take up smoking and do in 3 packs over 3 days and his odds for longevity would increase by around 15%…….. sure they would… 😯

almost at the stage where they can say a day sat in school or office desk is the same a smoking a pack of fags.

Apparently the interplay of not doing 30mins excercise 3-4 times a week COMBINED with sitting for a full working day and evening (not moving four a couple of hours at a time) is a real killer.

Hardly the same thing is it!!

almost at the stage where they can say a day sat in school or office desk is the same a smoking a pack of fags.

I agree lifestyles are a problem. I’m disappointed the CMO is making headline grabbing claims when she is only “almost” at the stage of being able to support them.

Where I might disagree is that adding to life expectancy (which I assume is her metric) is automatically a good thing.

Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer.

Public health officers and the like (and I’m looking at you CCGs) are conditioned to look at Longevity (almost to the point of obsession) as THE measure of success of interventions.

In this country (like many western societies) we’re pretty good at managing chronic conditions, I would question the priority of making someone live 10-15 years longer with one of two of the more recognised age related diseases, (heart disease, diabetes, dementia etc ) as a measure of “success”.

“Discuss”

It’s the ‘age related’ diseases that we are trying to avoid by leading a more active life

It’s the ‘age related’ diseases that we are trying to avoid by leading a more active life

S’not working.

Sedentary behaviours kill more people than smoking

And you need to be a medical professional to realise this?

Long picture is long…

IIRC there was a study in the states that had a ‘sedentary’ lifestyle killing around 10 times the number of people that smoking does.

BTW, a sedentary lifestyle is not something that indicates you are an office monkey, the vast majority of the guys I used to work with in an ‘active job’ (Aero engine overhaul) generally did piss all outside of work, indeed, most of them did piss all at work as well.

Ask a 23 year old if they want to live to 84 with activity limiting illnesses and you’ll get one response, ask an 83 year old and the response might be different.

Brought my dad home from his biopsy on his lung cancer yesterday, just another embuggerment to go with his diabetes, gout, otitis, hearing loss, heart failure with combined pacemaker and defibrillator, pleural placques from his asbestosis. He was straight back on Skype to my brother looking forward to another grandkid, then back onto internet dating sites looking for someone to go on a cruise with. He’s pretty keen on that 84, though he knows something is going to stop him sooner rather than later.

Apparently the interplay of not doing 30mins excercise 3-4 times a week COMBINED with sitting for a full working day and evening (not moving four a couple of hours at a time) is a real killer.

But Seal told me ~30 years ago that loneliness is the killer! 😯

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSKv2PSXfaY[/video]

One of the biggest reasons why I started cycling more this year to get outdoors, not simply to commute outside peak winter, was because of thinking about my long term health. I may well walk at a pace that Google Fit considers as running on my work days, covering ~5-10 miles, but for far too long I’ve been doing far too little on my days off.

Generally speaking, I’m currently feeling the fittest I’ve been in over 10 years, as a combination of ~75+ miles cycling per week and having lost ~15Kg since last summer (down to ~78Kg). My biggest challenges at the mo are getting over the man flu I’ve had since the weekend and finding a better training balance between hammering it and taking it easy on rides.

As someone who spent years smoking while sitting down, I’m really confused about which I should blame for my imminent demise now?

And then there’s the pies….

Everything is conspiring to kill me. EVERYTHING!!!!

To a man, the moaniest, angriest, most crabbit buggers I know area all lazy, greedy bastards with shit diets and drink too much.

I’m by no means a health junkie, but merely an observation.

Denmark made it a requirement to offer sit/stand desks a few years ago. Whenever I visit our office there about half of the people are standing and they change their position during the day. Looks like a winner idea to me

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26937454

I think IKEA even have them now which makes it a bit more affordable

Public health officers and the like (and I’m looking at you CCGs) are conditioned to look at Longevity (almost to the point of obsession) as THE measure of success of interventions.

In this country (like many western societies) we’re pretty good at managing chronic conditions, I would question the priority of making someone live 10-15 years longer with one of two of the more recognised age related diseases, (heart disease, diabetes, dementia etc ) as a measure of “success”.

He did seem more nuanced than my click-bait first post suggested… 😉

There was discussion on the fact that depending on socio-economic and geographical location, chronic and multiple-chronic disease issues are seen upto a decade earlier (and with them the social and economic costs).
This follows onto premature deaths and long-term impacts on wellbeing on folk.

The message to us was also about the huge long term benefits of kids being active, from early on through teens, with studies backing up his infographic-click-me headlines, suggesting that while not the only or stand-alone answer, that regular exercise and access to green space was of massive health and therefore social and economic benefit.

When the presentation comes though I can post it up.

I’m not going to defend him, or my shoddy interpretation of what he said, I just found it fascinating the long-term, ‘wicked’ underlying issues that cause many of our health problems, particularly in specific communities of groups of people.

I’m off for a walk folks…

Sat at my desk reading this whilst eating a massive portion of chips and drinking Dr Pepper. Will I make it to the end of the day?

Iainc says ye can have a fag too funky…

As long as you’re not eating bacon, you’ll probably make it through

Hey MOAO i wasn’t having a go, I’ve been in too many presentations and meetings about “Health Outcomes” with PHE and any number of CCGs and they all, to be fair to them, are banging their collective heads on desks about the amount of “lifestyle” derived illnesses that are having to be dealt with. We in the Health sector have to decide whether we prevent or treat, i think it will become the defining decision of our time

Sweet – I quit smoking years ago. I might take up rambling and pipe smoking, hopefully they will offset each other.

matt_outandabout – Member
Discuss.

Common knowledge that sitting for long hour will harm your health. Do you have back pain? Lower back pain? Other health problems? Trapped nerves etc? How many hours do you sit at your desk?

To me it should be compulsory for all companies to provide desk that can be adjusted for height. i.e. adjust height up so to work standing then adjust back to normal sitting height.

iainc–> agree with the principle, but statements like

a day sat in school or office desk is the same a smoking a pack of fags

are just nonsense, sorry 8O[/quote]

I think statements like these are intended to make the statistics relatable to a person’s own lifestyle, e.g. they don’t smoke or have given up for better health, but turns out their job might be just as bad for them.

Too often though they are taken in a literal way, e.g. if I’m active I can smoke a pack of fags then live the same length of life.

funkmasterp – Member
Sweet – I quit smoking years ago. I might take up rambling and pipe smoking, hopefully they will offset each other.

well that’s what the OP quotes 🙂

Too often though they are taken in a literal way, e.g. if I’m active I can smoke a pack of fags then live the same length of life.

agree 100%, that’s what sensationalist headlines are all about though….and Joe Public often takes such info at face value

Sat at my desk reading this whilst eating a massive portion of chips and drinking Dr Pepper. Will I make it to the end of the day?

No.

You’ll never see it coming.

😯 who wants dibs on my bike?

To a man, the moaniest, angriest, most crabbit buggers I know area all lazy, greedy bastards with shit diets and drink too much.

I’m by no means a health junkie, but merely an observation.

This!

I used to work in the NHS and got sick of seeing the classic avoidable disease clinics rammed full of people blaming everyone and everything else for their woes (immigrants, the EU, young people, politicians etc etc…) – generally, no interest whatsoever in accepting responsibility or taking action to help themselves. Although I’m a fan of the principle of the NHS, IME, because it’s seen as free, a significant chunk of the population don’t value it and just take the p***.

Oh, just remembered one of my colleagues classic one liners regarding a woman who was told that she needed to loose 4 stone prior to any surgery getting offended – someone commented (tongue in cheek) “perhaps it’s her metabolism?”, to which he replied “the only thing wrong with that woman in stuffiface-itis” …..PMSL

What about if I sit at my desk all day but one or both of my legs is constantly moving/bouncing? I’ve never been able to sit still. Fidgeting is in my blood – my daughter’s the same. I must be burning off some calories! 😯