Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
May 5, 2015

DAMN. Someone just sat on your cake.

Seriously, when I read it I didn’t believe it.

But the more I thought about it, the more possible it looked.

Sitting is the new smoking.

Exactly.

You cannot get away from it, the more you sit, the less time you live.

Sitting is the epitome of a sedentary lifestyle. Quote: A car-commuting, desk-bound, TV-watching lifestyle can be harmful to your health. All the time we spend parked behind a steering wheel, slumped over a keyboard, or kicked back in front of the tube is linked to increased risks of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even depression — to the point where experts have labeled this modern-day health epidemic the “sitting disease.”

Secretaries and Chairmen both have an equal opportunity to die young. So do thousands of desk jockeys. None of them are on the move. Add to poor posture as in talking on a mobile (equivalent to carrying a 20kg load on your back) and the laptop you are literally sitting yourself to death.

Lying down is less destructive. But sitting is a killer as a bad as smoking impacting on breathing ability, thickening veins, blood clots and hypertension.

Here is another quote:

“Up until very recently, if you exercised for 60 minutes or more a day, you were considered physically active, case closed,” says Travis Saunders, a Ph.D. student and certified exercise physiologist at the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario. “Now a consistent body of emerging research suggests it is entirely possible to meet current physical activity guidelines while still being incredibly sedentary, and that sitting increases your risk of death and disease, even if you are getting plenty of physical activity. It’s a bit like smoking. Smoking is bad for you even if you get lots of exercise. So is sitting too much.”

Clearly, the point is that if you are on the go you are going somewhere and if you are not, time is ticking away.

(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)