Maybe your co-worker who petitioned the office for standing desks was on to something. A new study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology shows that standing more could potentially ward off the weight gain that comes with being sedentary.
In the meta-analysis, researchers looked at a total of 46 studies, which included 1,184 people. For women, standing burned 0.1 calories per minute more than sitting. That seems like nothing, right?
But it all adds up: standing versus sitting for six hours a day would help a 143-pound (10 stone) person burn an extra 54 calories a day. Add it up over the course of a year, and that’s equal to 5.5 pounds of fat, the researchers say.
That’s actually not bad.
(Men burn 0.19 calories per minute standing instead of sitting, likely because they are usually bigger creatures with more muscle mass.)
Standing seems like no big deal, but as the authors point out, your body recruits more muscles to keep you upright, so it makes sense that they need more energy to do it.
Plus, previous studies have shown that standing burns about nine additional calories per hour compared to sitting. (That’s just about the same as this study.)
That said, researchers cautioned that you shouldn’t rely on standing alone to shed pounds: ‘Whether such a small difference in [energy expenditure] will truly translate into long-term weight loss is yet to be proved.’ Over the long run, you may simply eat more to compensate, for instance, and so the difference may be negligible.
By now, most people know that sitting in front of your computer all day is pretty unhealthy. It slows your circulation, ups your risk for type-2 diabetes, and is bad for your spinal health. (And yes, it’s still bad, even if you hit up spin earlier that day.) But research has shown that standing can help counteract some of that, lowering blood sugar, triglycerides, and blood pressure.
Your marching orders: sit less. It’s as simple as that.
