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Is It Worse to Be Sitting at Work or Sitting at Home?

July 7, 2019 9:00 am

A recent report indicates that sitting at home is more problematic for health than sitting at work and may be bad news for the manufacturer’s of standing desks.

Time: This Type of Sitting is the Worst for Your Health

Background: For the study, [published in the Journal of the American Heart Association: JM Garcia et al. Full text link Types of Sedentary Behavior and Risk of Cardiovascular Events and Mortality in Blacks: The Jackson Heart Study. https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.118.010406] “almost 3,600 African American adults reported the amount of time they’d spent sitting at work, watching television and exercising over the previous year. They also provided demographic, lifestyle and health-history information. The researchers monitored the participants’ health over eight years, during which 129 had a cardiovascular issue and 205 died.”

Key findings:

“After adjusting for health and lifestyle factors, the researchers found that “often or always” sitting at work was not associated with a heightened risk of death and heart disease”
“But those watching four or more hours of television per day had a 50% higher risk of heart issues and death, compared to those watching two hours or less per day.”
From Today: Sitting while watching TV, but not sitting at work, linked with higher health risk: “The health risk of watching lots of TV vanished when people spent 150 minutes or more per week doing moderate-to-vigorous exercise— like brisk walking, running, swimming and cycling.”

Commentary from Time report:

“People who spend a good chunk of their free time watching television likely do so at the expense of exercising.”
“Vegging in front of the TV may also inspire other unhealthy habits” –like snacking, consuming alcohol, and disrupting sleep patterns.

My take: This study suggests that sitting a lot at work is mainly a problem only for those who sit a lot when they leave work.