The year is 1982 and the talk of the town is the newly published article in the weekly newspaper by Maynard Good Stoddard titled “How to Kill Your Husband”. Frankly enough, this article was written for the intent of the reeder’s laughter as the article goes on to explain how to kill your husband with calories and low activity. Little did people living in the glorious 80’s know that this laughable and unthinkable tactic is what the majority of current Americans are voluntarily doing to themselves everyday. Americans are killing themselves with calories and little to no exercise to counteract the unfortunately known high caloric American diet. A sedentary lifestyle can have extremely harmful and lifelong consequences that can be physical or mental. Although this lifestyle seems intimidating with its daunting fourth place position in global mortality of humans, there are ways to combat these harmful consequences.
To be able to understand how much this epidemic is affecting the United States, we must, first, understand what falls into the category of the word “sedentary”. The dictionary definition of the word is: “not physically active“ (“Sedentary”). When applying the term into the human body’s health and nutrition, experts define the word as “people who take fewer than 5,000 steps a day” (Petrie). The recommended activity a person should get in a day at the least is 150 minutes of modest exercise or 75 minutes of a higher intensity exercise according to the CDC. In a study where people from all different age groups were asked to track their daily activity, nineteen year-olds were found to have as little activity as those in the sixty year-old age group (Park). Americans are not meeting these minimum requirements, resulting in this health emergency that needs to be brought to light.
Participating in this health emergency has unfortunately become the social norm. According to Lifespan Fitness, technology is an enormous catalyst, perpetuating a social norm of little to no movement throughout the day (“Health Risks of a Sedentary Lifestyle”). For example, children’s level of fitness has dropped 5% since just 1975 (Shute). It is no secret that technology has taken over many parts of our lives. We dedicate hundreds of our precious hours mindlessly scrolling through life. In a lot of ways, technology has made everyday tasks so much simpler. Because of this, children are taught to expect the easiest way out every time. For example, children would rather drive to school than ever bike or walk there. We would also rather just tell “Alexa” to turn off the lights instead of getting out of our chair and walking across the room. Technology has created many life changing opportunities for humans in just as many good ways as bad. Technology has led to the life changing opportunity of developing a sedentary life in many Americans.
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This new discovery of convenience from technology was quickly taken advantage of in the workplace -but not without its negative effects. Technology has intensely integrated into the job force over the years and has resulted in increasingly sedentary work days. Now since 1950, sedentary jobs have increased by 83% and dominate the job pool with 75% of jobs being non-physically active (“Health Risks of a Sedentary Lifestyle”). To add to this shocking data, the amount of sedentary jobs today is 50% more than it was in 1950. These incredibly high numbers can easily be linked to this convenience factor presented by technology. Computers, phones, and vehicles have taken the physical aspect of conducting work out of the equation. Physical activity is crucial to sustaining a healthy lifestyle and avoiding health related complications down the road.
If you don’t take the proper actions needed to care for your body, health complications down the road can be physical as well as mental. Countless studies have linked sedentary lifestyles to many chronic diseases. For example, little to no movement throughout the day can cause an increased risk of chronic heart disease, diabetes, obesity, select cancers, and early death (Kandola).
References
- The Health Impact of Sedentary Behavior
- NHS – Exercise
- Sedentary Behaviors and Cardiometabolic Risk
- Sedentary Behavior and Health Outcomes: An Overview of Systematic Reviews
- Mayo Clinic – Sitting Risks: How harmful is too much sitting?
- Association between leisure time sedentary behavior, sleep duration, and depressive symptoms among adults in South Australia
- The Role of Diet and Physical Activity in Breast, Colorectal, and Prostate Cancer Survivorship: A Review of the Literature
