Getting a Lot of Physical Activity at Work May Actually Be Bad For You

Most people could use more exercise. From the cars and subways that take us to work comfortably seated, to the sedentary daytime jobs, to the hours we spend immobile on our phones or computers when we’re not working, most of us fall short of the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week. Not getting enough exercise is linked to a number of health problems, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes and even some forms of dementia. But in a new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers say that not all movement is equal. In fact, they found that some physical activity is associated with a higher risk of dying early. Pieter Coenen, an occupational health researcher at VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and his colleagues analyzed 17 studies that investigated the effects of job-related physical activity. The studies included more than 193,000 men with varying levels of physically demanding jobs. Coenen found that those who were the most physically active on the job had an 18% higher risk of dying early compared to people with less active occupations. The results might seem contradictory to all of the data that documents the benefits of exercise, but Coenen says that those studies focused on leisure-time physical activity. “We think physical activity at work and during leisure time are two really different types of exercise with different physiological outcomes as a result,” he says. While people who exercise for rec...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Exercise/Fitness healthytime Source Type: news