Office workers 'too sedentary'

1. Office workers 'too sedentary'
2. By James Gallagher
3. Health editor, BBC News website

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4. Office workers need to get off their backsides and move around more, according to a new campaign.
5. On Your Feet Britain says sitting for long periods at work is linked to a host of health problems, which are not undone by working out in the gym.
6. It is calling on people to stand regularly, walk around more and embrace ideas such as standing meetings or standing desks.
7. Experts described inactivity as "one of the biggest" challenges in health.
8. Heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and poor mental health have all been linked to sedentary behaviour.
9. The effect is found even in people who class themselves as fit, such as those who cycle to work, if they also spend long periods of time sitting.
10. Prolonged sitting is thought to slow the metabolism and affect the way the body controls sugar levels, blood pressure and the breakdown of fat.
11. The campaign is a partnership between the group Get Britain Standing and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity.
12. Their survey of 2,000 office workers suggested:

1. 45% of women and 37% of men spend less than 30 minutes a day up on their feet at work
2. More than half regularly eat their lunch at their desk
3. 78% office workers felt they spent too much time sitting down
4. Nearly two-thirds were worried sitting at work was having a negative impact on their health
5. Gavin Bradley, from Get Britain Standing, told the BBC News website: "We're all victims of our environment, we've taken a lot of activity out of the workplace and we're sitting longer and longer.
6. "We need new and innovative ways of addressing the issue.
7. "Stand up when you're on the phone or in meetings, do everything you can to avoid sitting."
8. Office inactivity
9. 5.2lb(2.4kg)
10. estimated amount of weight that can be lost by standing up for an extra 30 minutes a day for a year

1. 37% of men spend less than 30 minutes a day up on their feet at work
2. 45% of women spend less than 30 minutes a day up on their feet at work
3. 50% regularly eat their lunch at their desk
4. Source: Get Britain Standing and British Heart Foundation
5. Getty Images
6. Other ideas including using the stairs instead of a lift, eating lunch away from your desk, taking a break from your computer every 30 minutes and walking to a colleague's desk rather than phoning or emailing them.
7. Get Britain Standing says standing burns an extra 50 calories per hour than being seated.
8. Dr Mike Loosemore, head of exercise medicine at University College Hospital, told the BBC: "Inactivity and sedentary behaviour is one of the biggest challenges we have in public health today.
9. "Compared with 100 years ago, our levels of activity are tiny, the number of manual jobs are continually reducing, even if you dig a road up you sit in a little tractor.
10. "It's about changing attitudes to how people behave at work and changing the culture of the workplace that just means moving around at little bit more, even just standing up can make a big difference to calories burned and how alert, creative and productive you are."
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13. Lisa Young, project manager for the BHF's Health at Work programme, said: "We're all guilty of being too glued to our screens sometimes, but these results show just how far the couch potato culture has infiltrated the workplace.
14. "Too many of us are tied to our desks at work, which could be increasing our risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
15. "That's why we want workers to get up and get moving on 24 April and take a stand against cardiovascular disease.
16. "A bit of healthy competition in the workplace could go a long way to reversing this trend whilst raising vital funds for our ground-breaking research."

middle-aged men

Fit middle-aged men 'at lower risk for some cancers'
27 March 2015

 

• From the section

• Health

Even small changes in fitness levels could reduce the risk of developing cancer, the study suggested

Your health behaviours and your fitness earlier in life has an impact 20 or 30 years later - and that's what people don't realise.
Dr Susan Lakoski, University of Vermont
Treadmill test

Getting fit and staying fit are important early on in life - for men's overall health

Long-term impactBeing regularly physically active is great for your overall health and, as this study demonstrates, has benefits far beyond the health of your heart
Tom Stansfeld, Cancer Research UK
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Very fit men in their late 40s are less likely to get lung cancer and colorectal cancer than unfit men, a study in JAMA Oncology suggests.

Their high fitness levels also appear to increase their chances of surviving cancer if they are diagnosed later on.

University of Vermont researchers said even small improvements in fitness could help to reduce cancer risk.

Cancer Research UK said investigating links between men's fitness levels and cancer risk was a new approach.

Being physically active and eating a healthy, balanced diet are already known to be important factors in reducing people's risk of developing cancer and other diseases.

But study author Dr Susan Lakoski said it would be more beneficial to tell people how much they needed to improve their fitness in order to reduce their risk of cancer to acceptable levels.

This could come in the form of a personalised plan, which should start with measuring their cardio-respiratory fitness.

This study of 14,000 men aged between 46 and 50, in Texas, tested their cardio-respiratory fitness levels at the outset by making them run on a treadmill to the point of exhaustion.

After that, their fitness levels were regularly tested over an average of six and a half years between 1971 and 2009.

Between 1999 and 2009, 1,310 of the men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, 200 with lung cancer and 181 with colorectal cancer.

The study found that the men with high levels of fitness in middle-age reduced their risk of lung cancer by 55% and their risk of colorectal cancer by 44%, compared with the men with low levels of fitness - those who took more than 12 minutes to run or walk a mile.

However, the study found that the fit men in middle age did not appear to reduce their risk of prostate cancer.

The authors said the exact reasons for this were unknown but men with high cardio-respiratory fitness may be better at looking after their health and therefore more likely to undergo screening for prostate cancer, making them more likely to be diagnosed.

Dr Lakoski said fitness prior to a cancer diagnosis was important.

"This preventative message starts earlier than you think, way before you develop cancer.

"Your health behaviours and your fitness earlier in life has an impact 20 or 30 years later - and that's what people don't realise."

In the study, she said as long as people were above the low-fitness category, they already had a lot of advantages.

Tom Stansfeld, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Investigating links between men's fitness levels and cancer risk, rather than just the amount of physical activity they do, is a new approach.

"The results reconfirm the benefit of physical activity in decreasing men's risk of bowel cancer.

"Interestingly, the study also found a positive effect of fitness on reducing lung cancer risk, but more research is needed to understand this potential link better."

He said other research in women had shown that increased levels of exercise could reduce the risk of breast and womb cancers.

He added: "Being regularly physically active is great for your overall health and, as this study demonstrates, has benefits far beyond the health of your heart."