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Study: Link Between Occupational Sitting And Obesity Predominant Among Women

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Findings showed that in both gender groups there is some risk of obesity related to sitting at work.

A new study finds a link between occupational sitting and an increased likelihood of obesity. The research was conducted by the School of Medicine and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

The study examined the relationship between how much time one spends sitting at work and the risk of being overweight or obese. Researchers gathered data in 2012 and 2013 from almost 2,000 residents of four metropolitan communities in Missouri: St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Columbia.

Findings showed that in both gender groups there is some risk of obesity related to sitting at work, but the risk revealed to be strongest among women, especially among African American women.

“For example, in over 30 minutes sitting per day compared to less than 30 minutes sitting per day, African American women had about two and a half time the risk of being obese compare to other racial ethnic groups,” said Ross Brownson, co-author of the study and professor at Washington University.

The reason why this relationship exists is still unknown. Brownson said African American women might be more at risk due to the type of work they perform or their diet. He said the difference between men and women might be explained by the fact that men are getting more leisure-time physical activity than women, but also highlighted that it is hard to precisely measure all types of physical activity.

“Like so many different chronic disease risks, there’s probably a whole set of different factors that are responsible for the relationship,” Brownson said.

To him, the most important aspect of this study is to remind people of the importance of taking activity break during the work day.

“The human body is meant to move, it’s not meant to sit still for hours at a time,” said Brownson. “So in all aspects of human physiology the human body just works better, and in this case the risk of chronic disease is lower if people get some movement at work and don’t spend too much time sitting.”

Any movement is better than no movement and researchers think there are a number of things that people can do to get more physical activity in the work environment, like standing desks, short breaks to take walks, and so forth.

According to Brownson, these findings are significant because obesity is one of the most important chronic diseases in the United States and costs billions of healthcare dollars every year.

“If you could imagine having 2.5 time the risk of being obese in the highest risk group in our study,” he said. “If you could lower that risk you have a healthier population, a higher quality of life and you also have fewer health care costs in 10, 20, 30 years from now.”

He said further research should look at a workplace where changes are being made to reduce occupational sitting and see if that results in a healthier work force over a period of months and years.

Marine Perot was a KRCU reporter for KRCU in 2014.