Stand Up for Heart Health

According to an article in the September 2011 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, if you spend most of your day sitting down, the rest of your body is paying the price.  Researchers strapped motion-tracking devices to almost 5,000 adults for a week, and found that Americans sit an average of almost eight hours per day.  No surprise: People who logged the most chair time had the poorest measures of heart risk (true even for those who exercises).  However, participants who got up from their chairs the most had C-reactive protein, a marker for heart disease, than those who got up the least, regardless of their total sitting time, and their waist were, on average, 1.6 inches trimmer.  "Standing up at least every 30 minutes," suggest lead author Genevieve Healy, Ph.D., of the University of Queensland, Australia.  While longer, active breaks are probably best, even brief pop-ups help.  So, take phone calls on your feet, use the restroom on another floor, and walk over to talk with colleagues.

Children need even more activity then adults.  This is why it is a bad idea to cut P.E. and recess at schools when there are budget cuts and time restrictions.  Make sure your children are not sitting watching TV and play video games for long periods of time.  Make them go outside and get some exercise.  We all need to be more active.