The February 2011 issue of Consumer Reports had an article entitled “Lose Weight, Stay Active” on pages 28-29. Tip number six describes how the simple act of standing at your desk can be an effective way to burn twice as many calories as sitting alone.
“When we’re sitting, we are burning almost as few calories as we do when we’re sleeping,” said Marc T. Hamilton, Ph.D., a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. “Sitting too much is hazardous to your health in a different way than exercising too little.”
Hamilton is a researcher in the new field of inactivity physiology, the study of what happens when we’re, well, just sitting there. Research shows that the more you sit, the higher your risk of weight gain, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. That seems to be true even for people who get the prescribed 150 minutes a week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.
Read the full article over at the Consumer Reports web site.