Studies over the last decade have demonstrated how the excessive amount of time we spend sitting down may increase the risk of death, regardless of whether or not we exercise.
The new study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, now estimates the proportion of deaths attributable to that ‘chair effect’ in the population of 54 countries, using data from 2002 to 2011.
“It is important to minimise sedentary behaviour in order to prevent premature deaths around the world,” said lead author of the study Leandro Rezende from University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
He also highlighted that “cutting down on the amount of time we sit could increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in the countries analysed.”
The results revealed that over 60 per cent of people worldwide spend more than three hours a day sitting down – the average in adults is 4.7 hours/day — and this is the culprit behind 3.8 per cent of deaths.
Among the territories studied, there were more deaths in the regions of the Western Pacific, followed by European countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, America and Southeast Asia.
