I'm typing this standing up, which is no easy trick when the keyboard is at waist level.
I'm doing so because a study in May's Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise says that we are sitting ourselves to death. Yes, researchers from Ottawa and Lousiana have found a link between being a couch potato and "premature mortality."
More than 17,000 Canadians between ages 18 and 90 took part in the 1981 Canada Fitness Survey and were followed for 12 years. During that time, 1,832 participants died, and the mortality rate was nearly three times higher among the sedentary people.
The chilling part of the study was that even physically active people died prematurely -- if they had jobs a good chunk of the day sitting. Uh-oh. The authors wrote that "physicians should discourage sitting for extended periods." They suggest taking breaks to stand and walk around every hour.
