Spend more than 3 hours a day sitting You’re dead

Nearly four per cent of all deaths world-wide — or 4,33,000 per year — are due to the fact that people spend more than three hours a day sitting down, a new study conducted in 54 countries has claimed.

Researchers, including those from San Jorge University in Spain, estimated the proportion of deaths attributable to the “chair effect” 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 the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

He noted that “cutting down on the amount of time we sit could increase life expectancy by 0.20 years in the countries analysed.”

The results show that over 60 per cent of people world-wide spend more than three hours a day sitting down — the average in adults is 4.7 hours per day — and this is the culprit behind 3.8 per cent of deaths (about 4,33,000 deaths per year). Among the territories studied, there were more deaths in the regions of the Western Pacific, followed by European countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, Ame-rica and Southeast Asia.