Sitting health Risk You Might Be Facing

By Suparna Chakaraborthy

Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 10:54

With the prolonged boom in the IT industry, unemployment and low salary seems to be talks of history. Earlier New York in United States and Bangalore in India were known as IT hubs but now the industry has mushroomed all across. Computers from luxury have graduated to necessity and dependency and there are million across the world working on their computers 24X7. Each of us understand the risk to our health after prolonged hours in front of the computer and thus, gym and yoga is a regular practice. But do you know that after all the effort you are still open to health risks? Sitting health risks is the major cause of concern among people who spend prolonged hours in front of the computer.

Lets look at some of the sitting health risks -

1.Diabetes – One of the major health risk of sitting is the occurrence of the slow killer Diabetes. The proper source of insulin and the burning of the fatty acids depends on the proper isometric contraction. This isometric contraction stops after prolonged hours of sitting. Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and health Sciences says, “after four hours of sitting the body starts to send harmful signals," and “genes regulating the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down." The continuous occurrence of this can lead to excessive glucose and fat content which thus leads to Diabetes. The worst is that while our isometric contraction has stopped we keep mulching on junk food which makes the situation even worse.

2.Heart Diseases – Prolonged sitting causes the health risk with poor blood circulation. Lack of movement, leads to slow heart rate and blood circulation. Improper blood circulation, means less blood supply to the heart and thus, less blood flow to the rest of the body. Low heart rate means that the heart is not pumping properly, which is goes on for a long time, leads to weak heart and finally heart stroke. Heart attack is one of the major health risk of sitting, and also the major reason for growing mortality rate among IT employees.

3.Back Pain - Back pain one of the most common problems faced by professions working on computers. This happens due to cramping of the hip flexors and hamstrings. The hip flexors, stretch from upper leg to the hip and the lower back. The constant cramping of this vein can cause severe back pain and leg pain. The work of these valves is blood flow to a certain direction. The movement of the leg and the back allow proper blood flow. When you spend most of the time sitting, these valves are not used for a long time, which leads to less blood and oxygen flow. This causes serious back and leg injury. Early arthritis and stooping back is caused by it.

Now, most of us work on laptops and computers. If you have noticed most of the time be have our neck bend and our eyes strained on the screen. This is poor posture for the body and continues poor posture puts excessive strain on the shoulders, back muscles, neck and hand. Spondylitis is one of the major health risk of poor posture.

4.Obesity – Are you gaining weight after you have started spending most of the time in front of the computer? If you have, then go for an obesity check. The enzyme Lipoprotien (LPL), sucks all the bad fat in the body and converts them into muscles. When are in the sitting posture most of the time, this enzyme shuts down, thus, causing accumulation of fat in different areas of the body. Constant occurrence of this can lead to obesity.

These are the four healthy risk caused by sitting for a long time. According to a research prolonged sitting is also one of the major reasons for high mortality rate, specially among women.