If you're anything like us, you've spent at least 80 percent of your day sitting down so far. Sitting on a bus on the way to work, sitting at your desk, sitting at lunch… well, you get the idea. And unless you've been living without the Internet for the past five years, you'll be well aware by now how bad that it is for you. But even if you think you've heard it all before, take 60 seconds to watch the animation above, which does a great job of really driving home exactly what happens, biologically, when we sit.
Created by animator Duncan Elms for Australian news program 60 Minutes, this is one of the best summaries of the research we've seen so far, and also helps to explain why something so seemingly innocent can potentially trigger such broad problems, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Along with the usual suspects of weight gain and back pain, the animation explains how, as soon as you sit down, the enzymes that break down fat drop by 90 percent, and your insulin effectiveness and good cholesterol levels drops. Sitting also makes blood clots more likely to form in your brain, and people with desk jobs are twice as likely to suffer from heart disease than those with active jobs.
We could go on, but the take-home message here is pretty simple - maybe it's time to stand up, watch the video and then get outside and go for a walk. Seriously.