Warning: Reading This May Be Hazardous to Your Health
I spend a lot of time sitting in front of my computer.
In my day job I write marketing material for software companies. My clients sell their wares to businesses rather than to consumers, so, unless you’re in the IT department of a mid-sized or larger company, there’s a good chance you’ve never read any of that material.
Clearly, my day job requires sitting at my computer.
In addition to that work, I surf the Web, write posts for my blogs, and maintain a couple of other Web sites. Needless to say, all of that also involves a lot of sitting at a computer.
Beyond the time I spend sitting in front of my computer, I also squander considerable time sitting on the couch trying to think up half-decent excuses for not going to the gym. I’m often successful at that. In fact, it is one of the few areas of my life where I’ve been able to achieve fairly consistent success.
Apparently, I may not be doing these things for too much longer.
Let me explain. One of the Web sites I check out regularly is CBC News. In this case, CBC stands for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I visit its news site because some of my tax dollars go to subsidizing the CBC. I want to get my money’s worth.
Yesterday, while at the CBC site, I came across an article titled, Time spent sitting increases risk of premature death: study. The subtitle was Risk increased even for those who exercised regularly.
The article reported on a study that examined the lifestyles of 17,000 Canadian men and women. The researchers followed up on those study participants over the course of 12 years.
What they found was that people who spent most of their days sitting had a 1.54 times higher mortality risk (i.e., a 54% higher risk) than people who got up off their asses occasionally. According to the research, excessive sitting increased the risk of death from not only cardiovascular problems, but also from most other causes apart from cancer.
The study normalized for other factors that are generally considered to contribute to mortality, such as the amount of physical exercise outside of work, body mass index, age, sex, smoking and alcohol consumption. So those factors, some of which may be correlated somewhat with a tendency to spend a lot of time sitting on your ass, did not skew the results.
What’s my point? It would appear that I’m risking my life sitting here writing this pathetic crap. How depressing is that?
Nonetheless, there is some emotional compensation for me.
The study results also suggest that you’re risking your life sitting there reading my pathetic crap. Don’t get me wrong. I wish you only the best of health and life. My emotional compensation comes from being profoundly honored by you’re willingness to send yourself to an early grave just so you can sit there and read my words.
From the bottom of my soon-to-be-stopped heart, thank you. Should my heirs send flowers to your heirs?
Categorised as: health
This is why I have my laptop hooked up to my treadmill so I can exercise and blog at the same time.
Yeah, RIGHT!
Chis: Oh yeah, I believe you. Sure. Although … When I saw the article on the CBC site it reminded me of an article I read somewhere (I forget where) some time ago (I forget when) about an exercise machine with a built-in stand for a laptop computer. I’m now wishing I had bookmarked that earlier article.
C.B.Jones: Maybe. The article wasn’t specific about that and I couldn’t be bothered trying to find the original research. Have I ever mentioned that I’m lazy? Laziness probably puts me even closer to the grave, but I don’t know if there is any research to back that up. By the way, does this mean that you’re not willing to die for my pathetic crap?
What if I stand while reading your pathetic crap? That’s a loophole, no?
OK, you can spend years exercising and being active, filling your days and week with hard physical labor or exercise or you can laze around and die before the really bad diseases come and/or Alzheimer’s rots your brain.
I may never get up.
I figure that extra time I buy will be spent dieting and sweating anyway. Better just enjoy the time I have.
Stephanie Barr: Enjoy the time you have? We’re supposed to enjoy life? Why didn’t anybody tell me that? Is that rule documented in a book somewhere or, better yet, online?
Here’s another one you can add, Joel. Sitting on the old terminous most of the time exacerbates back prolems. The Count knows (Just like the Shadow.) Having been retired from a long working life as an artdirector, illustrator, and designer, compelling me to sit at a drawing board most of the day, I’m facing my third back operation to avoid being crippled for life. But, you know what? I would not trade my time at my desk for anything!
There was a famous novel a number of years titled “End as a Man”
I’m calling mine “Sit on Your End As a Man.” My best. Count Sneaky
Count Sneaky: Despite your having enjoyed your days sitting at your desk, the description of the agony you’re going through with your back is leading me to reconsider the advisability of my strong, long-held aspirations to spend the rest of my days sitting on my ass.
I think a long hard-working life of exercise is highly over-rated. I would much rather enjoy myself all the way and cut a few years of pain, misery and impotence off the end zone.
>>>the amount of physical exercise outside of work, body mass index, age, sex, smoking and alcohol consumption.
As far as I’m concerned, sex is indeed fun excercise so I’ve been wildy exercising AND what is the point of waking up tomorrow morning without alcohol being available?
Cheers from a recliner-potato to an allegedly-productive member of society!
David: Yeah, the thought of living to an age when I’m back wearing diapers, needing constant help, unable to control my drooling and barely able to remember my own name doesn’t exactly hold a lot of appeal.
RedRaider: I still usually go to the gym a few times a week, but I lost some of my enthusiasm back in 2001 when I read that one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams, had died from a previously undiagnosed heart condition while working out in a gym. Adams was born the same year I was.
Ironically, I read about the cause of Adams’ death in a magazine–probably the Economist, that’s my usual gym reading– that I was reading while on a stepper machine at the gym. I cut that exercise session short.
Exerting yourself at a gym increases the risk of sudden death or a “cardiac event” if you are not in shape to begin with. What the hell’s the purpose? I’d rather croak sitting down than have a 250 lb. barbell crush my empty skull.
My God, no wonder I haven’t been feeling so well of late. I’m dead!
nonamedufus: Yes, I suspect death has a way of doing that, although I don’t think I’m speaking from personal experience.
Aren’t we all blogging zombies anyway?
Marissa: I’m not an aficionado of zombie movies. Do zombies always know they are zombies? Could I be undead and not know it?
Reading can be hazardous to mental health if this refers to the town of Reading in England, which was once a pretty little red-brick town but has now been transformed into an architectural nightmare, with ugly modern buildings and eyesores.
Going to Reading can thus cause severe depression and feelings of bleakness and despair. But a good way to recover from a trip to Reading is to go to bed with a good book.
Isisbridge: I’ve never been to Reading. I’ll take your warning about Reading to heart. Thanks also for your advice about reading as a cure for Reading. Now, if this doesn’t bring search engines to this post when someone searches for “reading” I don’t know what will. Do you read me loud and clear?