Sitting for 20 minutes less a day won't make you 'more muscly'

Conclusion Despite the encouraging headlines, the study showed it isn't easy to get people to reduce their overall sedentary time. It's interesting that people were better able to make changes at home – especially when both parents had been through the programme – than in the office. Future programmes could look at whether workplace interventions, which might include group activities or changes to the office environment, are more successful at reducing time spent sitting. We don't know the clinical significance of the small changes in some of the physical and biochemical results found in the programme group. It's surprising that any changes were found at all when the difference in activity levels was so small. One possibility is that the small number of participants and the large number of tests threw up some misleading results. There are several other limitations to the study: It was subject to selection bias. Only 30% of people contacted showed any interest in participating, meaning those who did were likely to be more motivated in the first place, so the results may not be applicable to the general population. People may have changed their usual activity level when wearing the accelerometer. Any effort to help people become less sedentary is to be applauded, but it's likely most people will need to do more than just sitting down for a few minutes less to make a big difference to their long-term health. While 20 minutes more exercise a day is certainly better...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news