“坐立不安”更健康

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2020年07月08日

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“坐立不安”更健康

研究者建议：一点点小动作可以更好的保护久坐的人远离疼痛。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

akin 类似

intriguing 有趣的

fidget 坐立不安，烦躁

epidemiology 流行病学

boffins 研究人员

obesity 肥胖

idly 无所事事地

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Are you sitting comfortably? A little fidget may be healthier （554words）

By Charles Wallace

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For office workers who spend their days working on a computer at a traditional desk, it is fairly old news by now that the medical profession considers sitting for hours a health hazard akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day. In fact, a number of studies have found that sitting increases risk of death by all causes even if you have a fairly active workout schedule outside the office. So the question becomes: what can you do about it?

Few of us have stand-up desks, which is the ideal solution, provided you do not stand all day without taking a break. For those who must sit, an intriguing insight into a possible remedy was included in a study published recently in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It looked at 12,778 women in the UK who were followed for 12 years.

Like previous studies, it found that sitting was associated with a 43 per cent increase in the risk of all-cause mortality, regardless of age. But there was a puzzling group that was not affected by the time spent in their chairs: for those women who sat all day but also fidgeted a lot, the risk of death actually declined.

Could fidgeting at your desk really protect you against heart attacks, even when going to the gym does not? When I put this question to the lead author of the paper, Gareth Hagger-Johnson at UCL’s department of epidemiology and public health, he acknowledged that one limitation of the study was that it depended on the women self-reporting their fidgeting time. Dr Hagger-Johnson also said researchers now need a “better objective measure of fidgeting”.

It turns out that science has actually looked at this question: fidgeting is known to research boffins as “non-exercise activity thermogenesis” or Neat. James Levine, a specialist in obesity at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has written several papers on fidgeting.

Dr Levine, author of a recently published book about the dangers of sitting called Get Up!, says studies indicate that people fidget because the brain is signalling to the body to move around more. When they are in an environment that blocks that urge —— an office, for instance —— “you will not move but fidget”.

The key takeaway of the UK study and others is that small movements that do not amount to physical exercise can be protective to otherwise sedentary office workers.

Dr Levine suggests keeping small hand weights on your desk to pump up and down at idle moments. He says another good strategy is to put a red dot on your office phone as a reminder to stand up for a moment whenever you finish a phone call.

One California manufacturer is now experimenting with adding “fidget bars” underneath school desks, which allows seated students to move their legs idly while listening in class. For the more adventurous, some fitness equipment makers are designing innovative devices that look like truncated bicycle pedals that fit under your desk and let you move your feet while seated.

Personal tech such as the Apple and Polar smartwatches even remind you “it’s time to move” after a fixed interval.

For those of us compelled to sit down all day, there is now scientific evidence of a small but effective way to reduce the damage caused by our sedentary lifestyles.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. What example does the author give to illustrate the risk of burning the planks?

a. taking drugs

b. smoking

c. excessive drinking

d. violence

2. What is the ideal solution for staying away from sitting too long?

a. have a workout schedule

b. smoke a pack of cigarettes

c. have a bad chair

d. have a stand-up desk

3. What is the limitation of the UCL’s study?