Being Sedentary is a Disease

“All parts of the body, if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle, they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly”(Hippocrates, ~450BC)

Reviews of world literature over the last 50 years conclude that inactivity alone results in a constellation of problems and conditions that can lead to premature death. This network of problems caused by inactivity has been termed Sedentary Environmental Death Syndrome (SeDS).

According the British Heart Foundation’s 2017 Physical Inactivity and Sedentary Behaviour report;

Around 39% of UK adults – that’s around 20 million people – are failing to meet Government recommendations for physical activity.
Around 11.8million women across the UK are insufficiently active, compared to around 8.3 million men.
Overall, women are 36% more likely to be classified physically inactive then men.

The estimated annual healthcare cost of this physical inactivity is approximately £1.2billion – with this rising to £42billion globally.

SeDS is becoming a public health burden due to the reason that its causing millions of chronic diseases, and millions of premature deaths each year. According the World Health Organisation (WHO), approximately 2 million deaths per year are attributed to a sedentary lifestyle. And within the UK, physical inactivity is a contributor to around 17% of premature deaths alone.

Sedentary lifestyles increase all causes of mortality, double the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity, and increase the risks of colon cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, lipid disorders, depression and anxiety.

However, a lack of physical activity is not to be confused with physical fitness. Physical fitness would be defined as a person’s work capacity across a broad range of times and modalities, further to this definition, a person’s physical fitness would include a number of components consisting of cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, power, flexibility, balance, speed and body composition. Whereas, physical activity is regarded as bodily movements produced by the contraction of skeletal muscle that increases energy expenditure above a basal level.

The solution? Make activity part of everyday life to promote greater positive health benefits such as increasing and improving coronary blood flow, blood glucose levels, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol levels, blood pressure as well as reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity and osteoporosis.

Whilst this wasn’t written with the intention to scare you into exercise – the intent was to make you aware of the statistics – because the biggest issue with physical inactivity is that just because you are in active you may not be overweight or obese, so there may not be any early warning signs. This is an issue because people will believe they are at no health risk, leading them to believe they don’t need to increase their physical activity.

Booth, F., Roberts, C. and Laye, M., 2012. Lack of exercise is a major cause of chronic diseases. Comprehensive Physiology, 2(2): 1143–1211

McArdle, W., Katch, F. and Katch, V., 2010. Exercise Physiology – Nutrition, Energy and Human Performance. 7^th ed. Philadelphia, London: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Will Strathdee