Sitting is the new Smoking

Are you the one who cares about your health but not yet started picking things that matters health the most? Well then this is the article you need to read, chew, remember and start practicing. When you read the title “Sitting is new smoking”, you may wonder what this title actually means. The title actually gives food for your thoughts. Read on…

“Sitting is an act of continuous seated position”, says any dictionary. We love to sit, isn’t it? We sit at office, home, buses, trains, stations, wherever. On the contrary we do not prefer to walk. There is no way you get to walk. Even if you get, you try means and ways to wriggle out of it. You did have an opportunity to stand in the queues, but no more. Technology has advanced to a point that there is no necessity to stand in a queue or for that matter visit a place at all. With all these, have we ever thought of taking a walk as a choice? The answer is a big No!

We should be aware how sitting infinitely affects our health. Here are some ill-effects of sitting infinitely.

Bad Posture

We all sit at office for long hours but do we sit right? Just close your eyes for a moment and think of your sitting position. Spine bent, neck angled and half supported hands. These postures stress your spine and in short term you may not see the impact. Once you touch 50’s, pain manifests in your spine and you are just beginning to see the effect on your spinal cord.

Passive Muscle Movement

Have you ever gone to gym or wondered why these guys are getting muscles by lifting heavy weights. The science behind the muscle growth is that when you lift the weights, you are breaking the muscles and since our body has self-curing mechanism, the broken muscles are reinforced with new muscles and hence the muscle growth. Let us think the other way. If we don’t give any physical work to our muscles, it leads to sluggishness.

Obesity

Now the big fish. Let us look around and observe the average weight or the look of the people. Most of them these days either are overweight or obese, and we don’t see it as abnormal as it is the new normal. This is solely because of lack of any physical activities. The passive movement of muscles will pave way for less burning of calories or glucose. This leads to accumulation of fat tissues in your body and over the time it causes obesity. Now you have no choice but to choose between a potato or a pumpkin besides carrying the ill-effects of obesity. The choice rests with you.

Diabetes

The logical next stage is diabetes. The less physical work has major effect on body glucose level. Insulin can reduce the glucose to a level but not completely. Over a period of time, insulin secretion becomes severely hampered and you end up with diabetes. Life with diabetes is a lot difficult with restrictions on food, medicines, stress, and reduced travel, regular visit to the clinics and a drain on hard earned money. No one wants to end up having diabetes.

Cardiac Problems

Lack of physical activities coupled with bad food habits can clog your arteries, another fall out of just sitting and having less of physical activities.

Now try to Google the phrase “smoking and its effects”. The result it throws will be very similar to the ill-effects of sitting and not having any physical activities. That is why we say “Sitting is the new Smoking”.

“I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family is a healthy you.”

So get your acts together and be active for your family and yourself.

Tags: Continuous sitting lessens physical activityLess physical activity causes health problemsLess physical activity causes obesitysitting is smokingSitting is the new smoking