Dangers of Sitting

Many health experts think the most dangerous thing most of us do every day is sit down. Like smoking, they believe, prolonged sitting is deleterious, and not something that can be balanced out by vigorous exercise when sitting time is done. Dozens of studies have drawn connections between sitting too long and diabetes, hypertension, some forms of cancer (especially in women), anxiety and a generally greater probability of early death. There’s also the risk of a weak, flat backside. It’s no wonder then that more and more people are raising their computer monitors to work standing up. But anyone with a dusty big blue ball in the attic knows that unconventional desk trends don’t necessarily last. Already, all the reports about the dangers of sitting have been answered with contradictory findings that it’s not so bad. And whether standing desks help is a subject of some dispute.

Desks that can be adjusted to rise and fall as workers get up and sit down again are the fastest growing office perk in the U.S., offered, according to one poll, by 44 percent of companies, a tripling since 2013. They are already common in Scandinavia, and about 16 percent of German workers have them. Soon enough, some of these desks will be fitted with sensors that monitor sitting time and vibrate softly to nudge users who have been on their behinds too long. One aficionado — James Levine, the doctor who coined the admonition “sitting is the new smoking” — pushed the trend further by inventing the treadmill desk, which like the standing desk has been embraced by some users and abandoned by others.