Wait, what?
It's been less than a week since we shared with you the grim news that sitting as much as you do will one day transform you into a helpless, miserable, immobile old person who can barely walk. Now, a team of Canadian researchers have found that people who primarily stand at work are twice as likely to develop heart disease as their chair-dwelling counterparts. From the team's summary of its to-be-published report:
This was the case even after taking into account a wide range of factors, including personal factors (including age, gender, education levels, ethnicity, immigrant status and marital status), health (e.g., diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, mood and anxiety disorders) and the type of work being performed (e.g., physical demands, shift schedule).
It gets worse. Way worse.
In fact, the incidence of heart disease among those respondents who stood a lot at work (6.6 per cent) was is similar to the incidence of heart disease among workers who smoked on a daily basis (5.8 per cent) or those who were obese (6.9 per cent).
Great, so people who sit on the job turn into bedridden geriatrics, while those who standin the office might as well be eating nothing but double cheeseburgers, or going through a pack a day, or maybe both. Who cares? Life is apparently a dark, meaningless, and ultimately futile search for health and happiness that ends only in utter disappointment.