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Hello. This is 6 Minute
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English from BBC
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Learning English.
I'm Phil and I'm Georgie.
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We all know
how important exercise is to stay fit
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and reduce the risk of heart disease.
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Do you exercise much, Phil?
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I try to.
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I ride my bike at the weekend,
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but to be honest, I do spend a lot
of time sitting down.
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Sitting too much is becoming an
increasing problem in the modern world.
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Maybe you take the bus
or train to work,
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then sit at a desk all day,
then go home feeling tired and
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just sit in front of the television
all evening as well. Added together,
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that's hours of sitting every single day.
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In this programme, we'll be finding out
exactly how much sitting is too much
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and of course, we'll be learning
some useful new vocabulary.
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But first,
are you sitting comfortably, Phil?
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Because I have a question for you.
On average, how many hours a day
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do British adults spend sitting down?
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Is it a) seven hours b) nine hours
or c) twelve hours?
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I'll guess it's seven hours.
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OK, Phil,
I'll reveal the correct answer later.
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Charlotte Edwardson is a professor
of health and behaviour studies,
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who has investigated the link
between sitting and health problems
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in her lab at Leicester University.
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Here she talks to BBC
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Radio Four programme 'Inside Health'.
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If we think
about our daily activities,
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a lot of activities are done sitting
down. Movement in our everyday lives
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has really been engineered out
with advances in technology
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and our bodies just weren't designed
to sit this much
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so it's going to cause problems
with our health.
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So when you sit down,
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you're not using the largest muscles
in your body.
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So, these are the ones in your legs
and your bum.
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So, that means
that your muscle activity goes down.
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When your muscle activity goes
down, your blood circulation reduces.
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Throughout history, humans have
always walked and moved their bodies.
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Now, modern technologies
like motorised vehicles
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and office jobs means we spend more
and more time sitting. Modern life
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has engineered out the need for us to
move. When you engineer something out,
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you design things in such a way that
it is no longer required, for example
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CD drives have been engineered
out of laptops because downloads are
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more popular.
Charlotte says humans are not used
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to sitting this much. Here,
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the words
'this much' mean 'in such large amounts'.
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It's a negative thing.
One negative
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being the harm to blood circulation,
the flow of blood
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through the heart and blood vessels,
which carries oxygen around the body.
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When we sit,
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we stop using important muscles.
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This reduces blood circulation
and causes a range of other effects
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like increased levels of glucose
and fat and decreased energy levels.
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The body uses 20% more
energy when simply standing
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than when sitting down and walking
uses 92% more energy
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and that's not to mention
the damage sitting too much causes
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to muscle movement
and blood pressure.
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But the hard truth is that sitting
is a big part of modern life.
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Everything is geared around sitting.
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It's organised towards that particular
activity and that makes it hard to stop.
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Here's Professor Edwardson
again, talking
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with James Gallagher,
presenter of BBC
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Radio Four programme 'Inside Health'.
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How much do you feel like you're just
swimming against the tide
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with all of this? Like the whole
of society is like driving us more
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and more towards, you know, sitting down
all the time and you're like:
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'please don't'.
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Sitting is so much part
of our everyday activities.
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You know, you go into a meeting,
someone's "come and take a seat".
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You go in to your GP surgery -
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"come and take a seat".
Everything's geared around
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sitting. As technology advances and
it tries to make our life easier, it
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then leads to us sitting
even more.
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James asks if Charlotte is swimming
against the tide of modern life.
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If you're swimming against the tide,
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you're doing the opposite
of what most people are doing.
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He also says that society is driving us
towards sitting more. To drive someone
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towards something means pushing them
to accept a new situation.
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Even when the situation
isn't so good.
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Luckily, there's some simple advice
to help. Break up periods of sitting
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30 minutes or more with a few
minutes of walking or moving your arms.
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Also, try to spend less than half
of your waking hours sitting down.
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Good to know. Now, about
your question, Georgie.
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Right, my question was
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how long does the average British
adult spend sitting each day?
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Phil guessed it was seven hours,
which was close,
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but not right.
I'm afraid.
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In fact, on average, we spend
nine hours per day sitting down.
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That's about sixty percent
of our waking life.
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So, remember to take regular breaks,
even just a minute or two.
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OK, let's recap the vocabulary
we've learnt.
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Starting with to engineer
something out,
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meaning to design
or plan in such a way
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that something is no longer needed.
The phrase 'this much' or 'so much' means
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in such large amounts.
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Blood circulation is
the movement of blood
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through the heart and blood vessels
which carries oxygen around the body.
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If things are geared
around a certain activity or purpose,
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they're organised to support it.
The idiom to swim against the tide
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means to not follow
what most people are doing.
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And finally, to drive someone towards
a new situation means to push them
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towards accepting it. Once again,
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our six minutes are up.
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Remember to join us again next time
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for more topical discussion and
useful vocabulary here at 6 Minute.
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English. Goodbye for now.
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Bye.
