Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.Biomechanist Katy Bowman talks to biologist Jeannette Loram about a recent New York Times article “Why Sitting All Day May Shorten Your Life.” Katy was a source for this article and she talks with Jeannette about the journalistic process, and why the short-form might be letting us down.
Katy and Jeannette talk about the benefits of sitting as well as the risks associated with uninterrupted hours in a chair. They discuss sitting as a two-part issue; first the inactivity and second the fixed body geometry. Katy and Jeannette discuss recent research showing that long hours of sitting are associated with a more rapid rate of cellular aging and how many experiences we put down to aging: muscle and bone loss, low energy levels and low back pain are really influenced by how much we sit.
Katy and Jeannette critique the recommendation to offset hours in a chair by increasing exercise time, noting that this is not really how biology works. Katy suggests that this approach is a bit like flossing your teeth diligently while not brushing them.
Venn Design | Correct Toes | Movemate | Wildling | Peluva | Smart Playrooms
OVERVIEW
(time codes are approximate)
00:04:05 - The Dynamic Collective (Jump to section)
00:07:30 - Balance: The Benefits of Sitting First! (Jump to section)
00:11:00 - Sitting: We’ve Not Evolved To Do It? (Jump to section)
00:14:10 - Katy’s Response to the NTY Questions (Jump to section)
00:17:30 - Fleshing Out the Details of Sitting (Jump to section)
00:23:15 - Is Sitting the New Smoking? (Jump to section)
00:28:00 - It’s Complicated: Eggs, Cake Batter, and Biology (Jump to section)
00:21:55 - Salami Research? (Jump to section)
00:35:00 - Flossing analogy (Jump to section)
00:42:15 - Aging (Jump to section)
00:43:45 - Telomeres and Chronological Age vs Biological Age (Jump to section)
00:49:45 - Listener Question Sponsored by Peluva (Jump to section)
LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
New York Times Article with Katy
Reducing Sitting Time vs Adding Exercise
The Protective Effects of Moderate and Vigorous Movement
(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6296262/)
(https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(22)00546-8/fulltext)
Sitting and Telomeres from Episode #132
Chronological Age and Biological Age
Sitting Time and Biological Age
Dr. Diana Hill on Episode #154
SPONSORS: THE DYNAMIC COLLECTIVE
This episode of The Move Your DNA podcast is brought to you by The Dynamic Collective, a group of six companies that create products and services helping you to move more. The Dynamic Collective is:
Movemate:world's first dynamic active standing board designed to make movement a natural part of your workday, without disrupting your workflow! Movemate are running a 15% Black Friday sale between November 29th and December 6th 2024 with the code MOVE
Smart Playrooms:design and products for active living indoors. Smart Playrooms is offering our listeners a 10% discount on monkey bars, rock wall panels, and rock wall holds with the code DNA10 valid until April 2025
Correct Toes: anatomic silicone toe spacers and other foot rehabilitation tools. Correct toes are offering our listeners a $5 discount on all purchases with the code myd-toes5 valid until April 2025
Wildling: minimal footwear handmade from natural materials for toddlers, kids and adults. Wildling are offering our listeners free shipping on all purchases until April 2025 with the code KATYWILDLINGS
Venn Design: Functional furniture for a balanced life - sit still less and move more
Peluva: Five-toe minimalist shoes that are functional and stylish
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
(Theme Music)
This is the Move Your DNA podcast, a show where movement science meets your everyday life. I'm Katy Bowman, biomechanist, author, and often a source for articles about movement. And I'm Jeannette Loram, biologist, movement teacher, and a critical reader of articles. Every body is welcome here. Let's get started.
KATY: Ok. Are you ready to talk about current events?
JEANNETTE: Oh goodness. (laughter)
KATY: The only current event we're going to be talking about is a recent article about movement. And we're recording this November 5th in the morning. So we don't even have any knowledge about broader current events.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: But we are going to stick with what we know...
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: ...which is what's in the media about movement.
JEANNETTE: I have to say I do think that it's amusing that the US election is on the 5th of November which is the day that we celebrate Guy Fawkes night.
KATY: Wonder what the...
JEANNETTE: I don't know - the gunpowder plot. And we have fireworks and bonfires and I wouldn't quite say celebrating.
KATY: Acknowledging.
JEANNETTE: Acknowledging that this gunpowder plot which was to kill the king was foiled in this country.
KATY: Hmm. And why November 5th. Why is that the date?
JEANNETTE: I think it must have the date it was planned.
KATY: The actual date? In what year?
JEANNETTE: Oh goodness.
KATY: Pop quiz. Just consult the Oracle! Consult your magical oracle.
JEANNETTE: It was either early 16-something ... early 16-something, I think.
KATY: That's a long time...
JEANNETTE: It is a long time.
KATY: ... to be celebrating one thing on a day. And will you be doing something?
JEANNETTE: We don't have loud fireworks because we're an animal friendly house with pets. But my kids have got some sparklers and we'll have a fire. So we will do something.
KATY: Are there any revolutionary foods?
JEANNETTE: No, there's no foods that are associated with it, but my memory of it, as a child, is always donuts because there was usually a fair. There's often a town celebration, fireworks, the burning of the Guy on the fire. And then there's a carnival too. So there are rides and candy floss. I don't know what your term for candy floss is.
KATY: Oh! Cotton Candy.
JEANNETTE: Cotton Candy. And fried donuts. You used to go to these little food stores. Completely not health conscious food.
KATY: But revolutionary foods all the same.
JEANNETTE: Yes. So that is what I used to do as a kid. And that's probably still the thing.
KATY: And it's in the middle of the week.
JEANNETTE: The day is always the 5th of November.
KATY: That's right. It's not always during the week.
JEANNETTE: But they will often have - the town bonfire night will be on the weekend.
KATY: Ok. And did you have that?
JEANNETTE: Yes. We actually are very lucky because the town over the water, as you know, we live overlooking this body of water. And the other side of the loch, the town festival over there is amazing. And we can sit on our patio and watch it from the comfort of our own front yard.
KATY: That's nice. Any fireworks that startle your dogs from that far away?
JEANNETTE: No. She doesn't care about anything. I've had other dogs that do, but she's very robust and it's fine.
KATY: That's lucky for you. I do not have dogs that are not hypersensitive to noise and fireworks.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, it's terrible. We try not to ever have anything loud for that reason.
Before we dive into our topic this week, we have some excellent news. The Move Your DNA podcast is now being supported by a Dynamic Collective. So what's a Dynamic Collective? These are products that we love. They are all companies really dedicated to help getting people moving. And they're support is enabling us to continue to create great content for you all. Members of the Dynamic Collective are also going to be sponsoring listener questions: one question per episode. So we would love if you would write in any burning questions and send them to podcast@nutritiousmovement.com. Ok. So who is the Dynamic Collective? The Dynamic Collective is made up of Venn Design: They make functional furniture that helps you move more. Smart Playrooms: This is design and products for active living indoors. Peluva: Five toe minimalist shoes that are functional and stylish. Movemate: A dynamic, active standing board. So it's a standing board that not only gets you moving, it moves relative to itself. More on that in future episodes. Wildling: Minimal footwear handmade from natural materials. And Correct Toes: These are anatomic silicone toe spacers. Over the next few months we are going to be interviewing these companies so that you can learn more about the collective and their products. You will also find links to all of them on our show notes pages.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: There's an article in the New York Times about sitting that I was a source for. And I wanted to unpack it with you. Not just the article itself, but the process of it and for everyone this idea of sitting. What are we talking about? We are in November, like we've already said. The new year here is coming up and for many people this is a time when you're thinking about I would just say your lifestyle overall. All of your habits, not just health ones but anything tied to your well-being tends to get extra consideration around January. So we thought we would arm you with some information to help you think through.
JEANNETTE: Right. Yeah. So we will link to the article. Not everyone will be able to get access necessarily. The title was: Why Sitting All Day May Shorten Your Life.
KATY: In the New York Times.
JEANNETTE: In the New York Times. So it was about the negative effects of sitting. Maybe, Katy, it would be nice if you could explain how your input, how you liased with the paper. And how you gave your input. And we can look how that is incorporated into the article. Because you're quoted twice in it.
KATY: I'm quoted twice. It's not a long article. But when you look at the sheer volume of what I wrote, and I'll share a little bit. I think the process is kind of interesting. But also, I think before we step into the negative effects of sitting, can we have a moment to balance things out - to celebrate the benefits of sitting? I don't think that there's nearly the same number of articles on the balance of sitting. And I'm just making this up on ...this is nothing we've prepared. But what's your top benefit for sitting?
KATY: I think rest. For someone like me who's kind of a go go go person in my body but maybe even more in my mind. I am trying to check in with my bias of really wanting to talk so much about not sitting to think, am I sitting? Am I resting enough? Am I able to be still? I think that there is a lot of benefit that comes with the ability to be still. Because I think that sometimes that is missing. All this talk is for myself. And you know, meditation, and a lot of practices where you are in a fixed position and not because you're hyper-distracted. But because you're choosing to sit and pay attention to the sensations of sitting. I think that that's also a skill that we could celebrate.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, absolutely. There's a book that I'm sure you've read called: Teach Us To Sit Still.
KATY: I have not read that.
JEANNETTE: Have you not read that?
KATY: Oh yes. I read that years and years ago.
JEANNETTE: Not old but it's...
KATY: It's old like we're old.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. Exactly. I think I'm similar to you: go go. But actually, I find meditation challenging. So that busy mind. But what I do is knit when I have time. And for me that's meditative. I sit.
KATY: That repetitive motion that you don't have to think about.
JEANNETTE: Yes. Until I make a huge mistake and then it's not so relaxing. But yeah, I think that forcing my mind and my body to just do one repetitive thing is actually very calming for me.
KATY: Yeah, and I think that chairs - I mean we could do a whole podcast on the history and the evolution of chairs. It's sort of similar to shoes. You can sit on a rock and then you can sit on something. It becomes slowly more ornate until you're back to the 1600s and you've got the throne. The elaborate decorative gold embossed throne.
JEANNETTE: I actually think I have a picture of you on a throne in a castle. It was probably built in the 1600s.
KATY: Can you find that photo?
JEANNETTE: I will find that photo and we'll see if...
KATY: We'll see if we can drop it somewhere where other people can see it. You're right. I do remember. One of those massive chairs.
JEANNETTE: Sterling Castle, which was actually James the first of England and sixth of Scotland - that was potentially his throne room. And he was the Monarch that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up.
KATY: Wow. Look at that synchronicity in chairs and podcasting and current events. Ok, so yeah, I just want to say that sitting is also a natural movement.
KATY: I know.
JEANNETTE: And I thought, well, what an odd... we can do the sitting position with no problem. I think what she meant was, we've not evolved to spend 10 hours a day in a chair. But it was just the way it came across as this snippet; sitting in and of itself even for a moment is bad. Which it's obviously not the message.
KATY: Yes. And it's my argument against the short form.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: Snippets, especially in a time when we've never had more information and more understanding - more depth of understanding - that's essential to communicate in all things across the board, speaking of current events. And lock step with that, just to keep the dynamic puns going, is a way of communicating that's all about snippets. And so what do you do? It's like you're in a perpetual state of not being able to clarify and be accurate when there's so much detail understood and you are limited to eight characters per sentence. And not eight characters but eight words per sentence or something like that. So I'm someone who has never been interested in hindering my word count, the number of words that I say, perhaps to a fault. But a lot of times the reasons I'm so long-winded is because I'm constantly clarifying what I say and then adding one more sentence, one more example, that I'm not including with this one statement because I'm trying to... it is a type of inclusivity, of making sure that that whole argument is there. So that that detail that's maybe relevant to you or that missing piece of information for you is represented somewhere. Academics - we're used to having unlimited journal articles. The database of information is massive. But when you're trying to contain the information into a book, or an article, or heaven forbid - is it still called a tweet?
JEANNETTE: I don't know. I don't use Twitter.
KATY: I don't either.
JEANNETTE: I think it is. What else can they...
KATY: It doesn't make sense if it's not Twitter. Then how does a tweet...
JEANNETTE: I don't know what you can get from X. I have no... it doesn't give you any option.
KATY: It's just a .... ksssssss. Just gonna kssss it. All through our website I have someone who handles all our media inquiries and they'll send me a list of questions. And this was about general sitting. And I can read through all the original questions. But it's like, How bad is sitting? How much sitting is bad? What can we do to offset sitting? Very general. Because the journalist is not just sending it to me, they're sending it to multiple sources. And then I think gathering data. And then to look and be like, ok what's the landscape of what these different so called experts or people of certain knowledge in their field, what's the consensus or is there any consensus here? Who's got something also different to say or unique to say?
KATY: And so this was my long winded answer. It says: I would break up the effects of sitting into categories: Musculoskeletal - so that would show up as pain or weakness, Metabolic - which would be decreased energy expenditure and cardiovascular, so reduced or problematic blood flow. These are important to the conversation but I don't think they're ever given enough distinction when discussing the issue of sitting. And then, I continue on. It just goes on and on. Sitting also is a two-part phenomenon. There's the shape being used, and the length of time in that shape. So that would be repetitive positioning but also stillness. As far as the shape being used, I assume you're talking about chair sitting. So that's that 90 degrees ankles, knees, and hips. But it's worth noting that people can sit in a variety of body constellations which is the orientation of their parts relative to each other. So that's, already, I want to define sitting in this way because I think it's essential. Another big umbrella over this particular article was, I think, the editor and the journalists understanding that people have already read a form of this article a hundred times and don't care.
JEANNETTE: Right. What then do you think was the interest in writing it again?
KATY: Well, I think that it's still a problem. So just because people aren't taking action on a problem doesn't mean that you don't want to report on it. It's important. So I think that there's always that going on. Any time you see something again and again and again it's newsworthy in that maybe it's ... I mean sedentarism is very expensive for our government and the governments across the globe. It's relevant to people's lives. Trying to find another hook to say, well maybe you haven't thought about it from this angle. I think there was a hope to maybe bring new data to light for the reader. And then also, I don't know, maybe you have to write ... I don't know very much about how publications like that work so maybe there's a certain number of articles that need to come out through a section of a publication.
JEANNETTE: Right. Yeah. It's like health or science.
KATY: That's right. And there's great science behind it so it's a way to keep talking about all the science that's being done on it right now. And maybe it's sharable. Maybe it's one of those things that it gets a lot of traffic and there's always financial benefit at the end. For any of those reasons and that's all speculation but that would be what I would suspect. I think about sitting quite a lot in a very nuanced way. So I was hoping to, as you can see, flesh out a lot of the details about sitting because I haven't seen that.
JEANNETTE: No.
JEANNETTE: I have never seen, and it was an immediate thing that I thought I know you would have said this and it was not in the article was what is it about sitting? The stillness or the geometry and nowhere, I have never seen that anywhere.
KATY: No.
JEANNETTE: Apart from you and in primary research papers that is not a consideration.
KATY: And it's even in papers.
JEANNETTE: It is!
KATY: It's totally in papers. But there is a very large resistance, I have found doing these pieces, to picking up the more difficult angle. I don't find it a difficult angle and I think I've written it again and again in a way that's so simple that many people say that was the motivating thing for me. I didn't understand how it worked. But now when I understand how it works, I can see something about my leg shape. It's not just, again, this very binary am I exercising or am I not. I think that this approach is like beating a dead horse. It's horrible. What a terrible phrase.
JEANNETTE: I know. Yeah.
KATY: I don't think we're making big leaps and bounds communicating about movement in this particular way. Journalists who write these articles are amazing writers. They're really able to present an idea, provide evidence for the idea, and sum it up with some great statement in very few words. And I've worked with some amazing writers, including the writer of this article who really get what I'm trying to do. But you're always limited by - it's not just what I say, it's a panel of people. And also how the editor wants it to go. And so I think that I'm trying to write about movement in such a novel way. Because again, I don't think that the old way is working.
JEANNETTE: I do wonder ... I've looked at lots of research papers and review papers so I should just clarify for listeners. A review paper will take lots of primary research and create a summary. It's always written by someone who is an expert in the field. But I see many of those aspects of the cardio/metabolic effects of sitting, vascular effects. But very rarely when review papers discuss vascular effects do they mention geometry. But there are papers, I mean they even describe it as bent-arteries. How they describe the geometry going on at the hips and the knees - that you can have these effects from your arteries being bent in these shapes for many hours. Yet that, which to me is so clear, because shape in geometry doesn't come into most people's wheelhouse, it just somehow seems to be missed on even very well written review articles.
KATY: Yeah. And I think our bias with movement is still really around caloric expenditure. And cardiovascular effects in the sense of your heart rate is low.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Not cardiovascular effects like the pressures and the angles of the blood flow itself. So it always feels to me like everything is being written at a second grade level, so to speak. It's not a second grade level. It's like an eighth grade or a tenth grade level. But what I mean by that is, it's not that these ideas are more complex. I mean that you're not going that deep into the actual field as a whole. And if we never penetrate beyond the same way of looking at it, it's just another piece that reads exactly the same and everyone's heard it. Everyone's read it. So we need something novel. So yes, we're just focused on get your heart rate up.
JEANNETTE: That's right. And your blood sugar low and...
KATY: Yes. And you can't argue with those things.
JEANNETTE: No.
KATY: It's just that they are such a small piece of the movement puzzle. They by themselves don't fully address not only the issues but I think the motivations of people. And I just want to say one more thing, the big hook about how are we going to open this article, mortality seems to be the angle. Are we going to die earlier? Are we dying how much earlier? And my vocalization to that, in this case and in other cases, is I don't think that death or sitting dangers - and danger is not even really the right word. Danger is to me really a word that talks about imminent problems.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: Not “this is really going to be bad for you in 30 years.” I wanted a different way of talking about it.
JEANNETTE: Yeah that's very interesting. I think, as well, the talking about they often say the all cause mortality risk - the statistic they often talk about. Risk is a funny one. Because it's like well that - it's way off. And it's a risk it's not a definite outcome.
KATY: Sure.
KATY: And it doesn't feel like fact either. It's sort of like could be, might be. But, I think to their support of the use of all type mortality is that that's often what the research is looking at. So you can pull papers. Because that data is a lot easier to get. One of the questions that was asked was is sitting really the new smoking? To which I would say no. It depends on what you mean by really. But smoking so clearly decreases living time and the chances of you having major problems if you smoke are much higher than the way it looks right now with sitting research. Now the tricky thing is you can't really measure sitting in the way that you can measure smoking.
JEANNETTE: No.
KATY: Because is this a sitter who doesn't exercise or is this a sitter who exercises? Is this someone who is active at work and then sits the rest of the time? Even if you count 8 hours of sitting, you can have someone who is quite active either through labor tasks or through exercise or athletic performance. And so it's not as easy to look at sitting as a habit when you're not accounting for what's happening the rest of the time.
JEANNETTE: Although there are some quite clever studies that are trying to separate those.
KATY: For sure. And they have found that being active at work and sitting leisurely is really similar in a lot of usually cardiovascular outcomes compared to sitting all day and exercising.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: So they did want a direction. I think that they wanted something compelling to open the article with to make it not so oh another article about sitting. And I think when people read articles about sitting they say I exercise. I don’t need to read this article.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: And I do think that that was also part of the intention of having another piece about it. Even the publication is like I don't think people really realize how important it is to look at your sitting habits even if you do exercise. The tricky thing is is every article about sitting sort of sums up with, “exercise to offset.”
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: And yes, kind of. So this was another back and forth for me.
JEANNETTE: Right. Interesting.
KATY: Where the writer had pulled a bit from My Perfect Movement Plan which says that you can't exercise off sedentarism like you exercise off calories. And then, so she's got this quote and she's like but here's all this research that says if you just exercise you reduce the risks. And I was like, yes. So clarifying - it doesn't work in the same way. So one of the things with this concept of exercising off sedentarism is you're not longer sitting. Like with smoking, you smoke just a little bit and those effects become whole body effects that are with you all of the time. Many of the effects of sitting are while you are sitting. So anything that decreases your sitting behavior, like physical activity, is making it so you sit less. So you almost have to put on a philosophical hat. These are philosophical arguments about what is. Which is a tricky space if you're not used to working in logic or symbolic logic. These are those types of argument. And then also, what are you doing when you're exercising? You are rapidly shifting your position. You're trying to get the benefits of shifting your position by shifting your position many times in a more compressed period of time. And so you can offset, definitely , the negative effects of sitting through exercise. And you can also offset them through being in very light occupational activity. So that exercise is not the magic bullet here. You're just changing your shape and your position and you're getting up out of your chair. So yes, you can offset the effects of sitting by sitting less. Now, if you're going to compare it to standing still, maybe not. You still have to have some shift. So I just find that these are very tricky conversations to have.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
JEANNETTE: So I'm going to throw my thoughts in on what you've just said from my more cellular background. And I agree with everything you say. It's much harder to compare sitting and smoking because of everything you just suggested. You're automatically going to be moving more if you're not sitting. So there are these logical loopholes and twists we get into. But, I'm going to say something and I hope it makes sense, being sedentary which is sitting appears like it's logically the converse of being active. But when you're looking biologically that's not true.
KATY: Exactly. Exactly everyone. Just nod your head, yes!
JEANNETTE: I'm going to give an example. So because they involve different physiological or biochemical pathways they're not the opposite. And let me give you a really easy food example. When you cook an egg, you have got the cooked egg and you want to make a cake and you need a raw egg, there's nothing you can do. You can't remove that heat and put it in the fridge and use it in your cake batter. It's an irreversible reaction. The same things happen in cells. You have these irreversible reactions. And you can have a different pathway that's being caused by being still for long periods of time. But then you do something like very intense activity and that's a different pathway. But it doesn't actually change the fact that you've started this other pathway through sitting for a long period of time. I may have just lost everybody.
KATY: Well, I think everyone just really likes the eggs. Everyone is nodding yes. Although hasn't anyone ever thought if I chop and dice this cooked egg up? No because it's not able to emulsify into these other chemical things. I think ultimately what we're talking about is chemical changes. But we are wanting to talk about movement like it's this whole body... you're just a lump moving around and everything will be fine if you just move your lump around.
JEANNETTE: If you do lots of the opposite thing, it's the same as not having done a negative thing. But that's not how biology works.
JEANNETTE: And there's some really good research that I've seen where they've actually teased those apart. And the mechanisms that lead to the detrimental effects of being still are actually different. The protective effects of moderate and vigorous movement. And we can link to those if you're interested. So, I think it is super complicated.
KATY: But necessary. I think we're at the point, this is to my earlier commentary on what happens when you are a society that both teases out all these things to endless detail and has no space to actually communicate them. That's where we are. I feel like it's almost been a reverse. We all come from the times where not as much was known, but when you knew something you would make a whole school around it and write a whole book. And everyone would consider it. And there were only 5 books that you were reading. So we gave deep consideration to much more surface level ideas compared to where we are right now. And we've sort of swapped now where we've got depth and nuance and modern technology that allows you to look at all the small bits. And we're tweeting about them.
JEANNETTE: I think that's true. And I think that the problem is, as well, in how science is done and communicated.
KATY: And communicated. I don't know how you would do it differently unless you're thinking that the process would be it's up to the researcher to also integrate it in some way.
JEANNETTE: Well, I think in the past people, the way research was funded - people had time to write monographs - a whole synthesis of their careers, big ideas. Whereas now, well when I was in research we used to call it salami science. You're judged on how many papers you published. So you chop it all up into little bits like a salami. And there isn't this synthesis. I would be very interested in what the researchers who were interviewed, along with you for this paper, how much time they gave to it. Because the way science is funded there is not so much need for scientists to communicate to the public. They don't get any - there's no need. So that is not a focus. It is of some. There are some very very good scientists that spend a lot of time trying to communicate really effectively. But for a lot of people they're busy doing things that they're getting paid to do. And it's not communicating science.
KATY: Yeah. You almost have to be an entrepreneur mindset. Like a Daniel Lieberman who says “I'll write books.” Or a good writer who has that desire to say I really want to take these more complicated ideas and put them out in a way that makes them popular.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: And then people can consider them as well. So yeah, I do remember at UC Santa Cruz, I'm not from that university but from that area and I was always looking at a writing program about science communication. That was actually a degree program. And if I could do another one, I really almost went down that path of being able to write really great science writing. And I guess I kind of ended up falling into it.
JEANNETTE: Well you do. That's what you do.
KATY: This is when I was much younger. I said, “this feels like what I want to do is think about and know myself these in-depth concepts.” And then earlier in my magazine sourcing or writing career, an editor told me, I said, “these ideas are too complicated to fit into 1500 words.” And she said, “the better you know an idea, the easier it is.” And she was right. And now I realize my ability to write concisely about something speaks to my understanding of it - I can reach for. Metaphors I can more easily reach for. The perfect word, you know, and so.
KATY: So they wanted a hook. And the hook was: Are you going to die in the next five years if you are sitting. And it was like no. But they wanted something captivating so the first thing that I threw out there which I still love. And no one steal this from me because I want to write almost like an op-ed piece about it. How do we communicate that exercise isn't enough? For many people think “I'm eating right and I'm already exercising, you know, four times a week. I'm eating the guidelines.” That this sitting habit is almost like low hanging fruit. And it's a much bigger problem than you realize. The analogy that I offered is that the problem we're describing is much more akin to flossing your teeth diligently but not brushing when it comes to exercise and a really large sitting habit. And I'm not talking about four or five hours a day. I'm talking about 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and more hours a day of sitting. Because even hunter gatherers groups now, sitting still makes up half of the day.
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: It's still a very large portion. Now, the geometry is different which is why we don't want to just say they sat all the time too. They were taking rest in many different shapes which we will save for another conversation.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: So you're doing this deeper, more intentional - is flossing deeper? I mean it's literally deeper. Is it more intentional? I think so. Do you floss every day?
JEANNETTE: Oh, you know.
KATY: Oh sorry. Too personal.
JEANNETTE: I would love to say yes but I would never miss brushing my teeth twice a day. But I do occasionally miss flossing. I do try and do it every day, but it's something that if I'm really tired I would miss. Whereas I would never miss brushing my teeth.
KATY: You're never too tired to brush your teeth. It's just easier and faster.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: And I feel the same way about breaking up your sitting day. I think that's much easier and faster than it is to get yourself to this much more invested period of time that you call exercise. And we're not doing it. And so I feel it also has to do with habit. We've maybe got the exercise habit. But we don't have the habits around those little movement snacks, now that everyone's calling them. Breaking up your geometry by just standing up. The solutions, again, that low hanging fruit, they're so simple. They are inexpensive - free to inexpensive. You could buy a treadmill desk and you could buy more expensive tools that make it easier for you. But the accessibility is often really great on these. And I think it has a lot to do with just the inertia of sitting. Sitting as a habit. Sitting being so ubiquitous in the culture. And also I think when we look at it from an oral hygiene perspective what are the problems that arise with poor oral hygiene? It's not usually death. Although death is on there.
JEANNETTE: Yeah sure.
KATY: Death could be on there for extremes. It increases your risk for these kinds of infections.
JEANNETTE: And it is related to cardiovascular health.
KATY: It absolutely is related to cardiovascular health. That's a whole other episode too. But all the oral hygiene professionals out there are just nodding their heads. I went to the dentist and I've always had really good dental care when I was younger because my aunt was a hygienist and have just always taken really good care of my teeth and always had a pretty good diet. And just those habits were instilled pretty well. And sometimes I will go - this is going to be horrifying - I can go multiple years without a cleaning. And they'll say, "You have no plaque". And I'm just someone probably genetically that doesn't accumulate it and I have good habits. And the people there, the dentists and hygienists, would say "You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't brush." Exactly, your face right now. That's exactly the face I was making. I didn't even know ...
JEANETTE: ...that was a thing.
KATY: I didn't even know that was a thing. They're like, "Oh yeah, really. If you weren't raised in a house that started that early, you never develop that habit." And so I can really see the similarities here, again with daily exercise. I can't imagine...
JEANNETTE: ... not doing it.
KATY: Not doing something every day for, you know, an hour. And I'm not talking about a workout but even just moving my body for a period of the day, every day. And the consequences that we have with this poor oral hygiene are usually painful - but every now and then. It's not something you deal with oral hygiene day after day. They kind of slowly develop into a cavity, or an abscess, or a root canal. Expensive little things. If you have great insurance it's not costing you but they are costing somebody. But these sort of inconvenient, often painful, but local pain, expensive little things that add up. And those, too, are the consequences that we have from sitting. It's not death that we're concerned about. It's this repetitive geometry that shows up in your hip, or in your knee, and then you have to go get some physical therapy or a joint replacement or another type of surgery. Or you trip and fall because these parts aren't strong and robust. They're not robust and used to working in these different positions. There's a loss of balance over time - like a receding gum line. Obviously I was excited about that analogy but...
JEANNETTE: I think it's a great analogy. And it's almost like we can't see the wood for the trees. It's the wrong way around. I really like it. So we're all doing our exercise and flossing our teeth, but we're missing this really easy thing of just brushing our hips and brushing our teeth.
KATY: Yeah. Stand up! I mean you can brush your knees and hips and ankles and vertebrae by standing up. By bending over and touching your toes. I mean we're talking a little bit of time. You brush your teeth for 2 minutes. 4 minutes a day. And we're asking sort of the same... Now, I don't want you to touch your exercise habit. It's not to move that away because we need that also. We need much larger movements. But we also need to be removing the bacteria at a greater frequency. There's no bacteria in your hips, I mean there are. You know.
JEANNETTE: I love that.
KATY: So the angle we ended up going with, though...
JEANNETTE: Because that didn't appear in the article.
KATY: No. So what's the top line in the article?
JEANNETTE: Yeah. So it's the aging. It's the aging which is... well but it's the mortality. Why sitting all day may shorten your life.
KATY: Ok, that's the title. But what's the first line?
JEANNETTE: Oh yes. Let me read that to you: Spending too much time in a chair can unravel your fitness goals and make you feel older. Here's how to counteract it.
JEANNETTE: Yeah, that is. That's the tagline. And then your first line, which is in paragraph two is: Sitting is actually aging you faster.
KATY: Right. So I suggested the aging direction as another sort of big problem that people might be concerned about that wasn't death. It does seem like we're in a moment. We're in an anti aging moment. At least if you spend any sort of time on social media at all. It just seems like anti-aging is the new black.
JEANETTE: Right. Absolutely. So sitting is actually aging you faster. What were you thinking about when you offered that statement?
KATY: I was thinking two things. The first one was about the research on sitting and telomeres which we can talk about. And then also a lot of the effects we have that we would associate with aging. So bone loss, sarcopenia muscle loss, due to advanced aging, loss of balance.
JEANNETTE: The cardiovascular thing. Things like VO2.
KATY: Yes, cardiovascular and even energy levels. We say "oh I'm getting older". All these things are falling down. Well all of those things that we just mentioned are also things that go down in absence of regular movement. So I was thinking about a lot of the way you feel about, the way you feel in your body that you're attributing to exercise, could equally be attributed to not getting regular movement.
KATY: Exercise, yes. But you have to work more as you get older. So if you're sort of allowing yourself to chronologically get older while sitting down, you're biologically going to age yourself faster. Which is where telomeres come in. So you want to explain telomeres to the audience?
JEANNETTE: Yes, so telomeres are little caps on the end of your chromosome. I always compare them to the little plastic caps on the end of your chromosome. They kind of keep the structure of the chromosome intact.
KATY: You mean the caps on the end of shoelaces.
JEANNETTE: Sorry, I meant shoelaces.
KATY: I know what you mean.
JEANNETTE: The caps on the end of shoelaces that stop the shoelaces unraveling, you have these little caps on the end of your chromosomes which are called telomeres. So they essentially protect the end of your chromosome. But when they get critically short, it means that the cell that they reside in can no longer divide and it becomes what we call a senescent cell. So at some point when the telomeres are critically short then that cell becomes senescent and it no longer divides and can grow. So that's why it's quite relevant to aging.
KATY: And so for everyone listening, your cells are constantly... I'll say replenishing. They're being fed. You have a cell and that cell has a life cycle and it dies and then you're fed this new cell, the same type of cell from your chromosomes. But it's almost like you have only so many copies of a particular cell that you can go through. And these telomeres, these shoelace caps, as they get shorter, it's an indication that the number of cells that you have left to go, the number of divisions you have left to go...
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: ...the machinery that's making the new cells is starting to run out of stuff.
JEANNETTE: Perfect.
KATY: Thank you for my high tech explanation. Yours is so lovely. And so there's been some research looking at the difference between chronological age and biological age. Chronological age: your actual number of days that you've been alive and your biological age: how old you seem. How old your body... I guess it's another philosophical thing. It's more like how far you've depleted your allotment of cells.
JEANNETTE: That's right.
KATY: And I think there's been research on exercise and cells. Sorry - exercise and telomere length to say it seems to be protective. So we exercise. And I was thinking about it and it's like yes, I think if you don't exercise, you know, you were talking about the effects, the cellular effects, of not exercising, basically make you go through your cells faster. Do you know what it is about that? Is it inflammation?
JEANNETTE: Telomere biology is incredibly complicated. My understanding is inflammation would be the logical guess but probably, as well, things like reactive oxygen...
KATY: Oh right.
JEANNETTE: ... which was all related to inflammation. So you're having a more damaging cell environment, essentially.
KATY: Yeah. I think damaging cell environment is the safest thing to call it. And so yeah, your cells are - you go through them faster. And there has been a little bit of new research that's looked at sitting time independently of exercise. And I don't remember exactly what it was but I think it was in an older women, maybe even community dwelling women - you're living in senior housing or something like that, that when you got to 10 hours of sitting a day, that that group of people compared with more just active with very light activity or exercise were biologically 8 years older.
JEANNETTE: Wow.
KATY: Also it seems that you go through your cellular division more rapidly as you age. Is that right with you?
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: I feel like I read a paper about that.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. I do not know about that. That might be true. That it sort of accelerates. And, again, that may be due to your homeostatic mechanisms aren't as robust so the cellular environment is not as ideal. I would have to check that. That's interesting.
KATY: And I feel like that line or two was in reading a bunch of other things about telomeres and ... oh my gosh, my brain ... I think that it was almost a speculation of saying we do tend to see the rate of telomere decline increase with aging. And is that because there also is a decrease in mobility of movement?
JEANNETTE: Right.
KATY: It's really hard to tease those things apart. I don't think it's even an old enough set of knowledge.
JEANNETTE: No. And I think it's a huge area of research. It's fascinating. But yeah, I'm going to check that out.
KATY: So that was the most pazzazzy opening that I could think about or that I could come up with.
JEANNETTE: And I do think, like you said, especially when death feels like a long way off. And when you're talking about mortality risk and you're bringing it back down to actually, you could be biologically and just functionally older because of your sitting habits. That's quite eye opening, I think, for people. So I like that one a lot.
JEANNETTE: I think this is the perfect spot. Let's do it now.
KATY: Ok. So this question is from Jennifer and brought to you by Peluva, a member of our Dynamic Collective. Peluva creates 5 toed minimalist shoes that are functional and stylish. They also offer 5 toed socks and a range of dynamic sports clothing. You can find them online at Peluva, I'm going to spell it for you: that's P E L U V A dot com.
JEANNETTE: So thank you Peluva. And this is Jennifer's question: I have a general question about gait during walking. I seem to lean forward from the hips like I'm rushing forward as I walk. I'm trying continually to correct that and stand up straight while walking. I notice other members of my family do this as well. Should I be using my yoga posture and extend more upwards? Is this common? Should I work on it? And is it detrimental over time?
KATY: Mmm. I like that question. There are a lot of questions in there. I would say, well, first question of should I be using my yoga posture. I'm assuming she means lengthening your spine. Reaching the crown of your head up towards the ceiling at all times. Yes. I think you want to be always thinking about that active increase in length between your feet and your head.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: That's a simple one to bring with you all the time. Is it common? I think so. I mean I think there are a lot of things that the body is doing during walking that are common. But I do see a torso forward a lot. Especially on stairs and going uphill.
JEANNETTE: She said she sees it in other members of her family. Which I just think that's probably because everyone has some similar habits perhaps in her house. They've learned from each other. She's specifically asking if it's detrimental over time.
KATY: It's detrimental over time in that I think that that posture puts a lot of pressure on the front of the foot. So that can be the way it shows up as a negative for people. But also about a long-term ability to hold yourself up over time. When I see a forward torso, and I have no idea the degree to which her torso is forward but your legs are underneath you when you're standing up straight. And as your torso goes forward, they're not really under the weight any longer. Your torso is now creating this forward pull on your body all the time that maybe you have to stiffen your back to oppose. Or you have to clench the toes to oppose. And you lose, really, the ability - and there's no more posterior push-off when you're walking. Right? If your body is sort of always leaning forward. And I think the reasons that we tend to lean forward are very practical in nature. So I had mentioned that I see this a lot on hills and going up stairs. Because it's one way to make walking easier on your body. Your legs have to carry less weight. You had to do less push-off. You sort of get a free ride. And when they say walking is falling, that forward torso is a big part of why walking is falling. So I think it's something that you want to work on. But it's different than just standing up straight all the time. Again, I certainly think we want to work on standing up straight. But I would call up the psoas muscle here and perhaps other hip flexors. The psoas is the only one that's up as far on the spine. But when people get out of their chairs, I always say that they're not leaving the chair as far behind as they think they are. There's significant adaptations to having a lot of hip flexion a lot of the time. So I would go to my website and look up psoas release and be working on, and psoas is spelled conveniently P S O A S.
JEANNETTE: Yes so that's great. And maybe some other lunges, hip flexor stretching could be in there too, maybe.
KATY: And posterior push off, strengthening your backside. When we work with people and have them start backing up their hips, or, let's say, bringing their shoulders back over their hips. So they're standing up vertically. There's often not a lot of posterior strength. And so people feel more structurally sound if they just bend their knees a little bit, lean forward a little bit ... so you want to make sure that your backside has enough strength to hold you in an upright position. So it's not like you can just overnight stand up straight. It's that you're working on strengths that better support you being in a vertical position which allows you to do it more often or at least bend forward to a lesser degree. And then you get more strength developed and then eventually it can come more and more upright. So that's my final answer for that one.
JEANNETTE: Great. Thank you. So should we get back to our conversation about sitting?
KATY: Yes. Let's.
KATY: Well, I don't know. What would you say? Is sitting as bad as smoking?
JEANNETTE: No. Well, no. I think smoking - there's nothing good about smoking.
KATY: We couldn't open the podcast with what are the good things about smoking? I'm sure there's some usefulness ...
JEANNETTE: Someone may say stress relief. But then I did read, years ago, apparently that got debunked. Because actually they are just more stressed until they get their cigarette. And then their stress levels go down.
KATY: Right.
JEANNETTE: No. I think it's so damaging to every single system in the body. And I don't think it's appropriate to compare getting into a chair is anything like that.
KATY: As lighting up a cigarette. Well, but how about this though? I wouldn't say that not brushing your teeth is as bad as smoking. And also I would want to brush my teeth.
JEANNETTE: Oh. Yes!
KATY: And that's a takeaway. I don't think that it being as bad as smoking needs to even be involved in our thought process of setting up a habit of sitting less. So I think sometimes those headlines - we all know what headlines are for. And they have nothing to do with helping us out. But if you're thinking in your mind, "Well it's not as bad as smoking and I don't smoke." Well, is brushing your teeth bad? Well it's not good or bad. It just comes with a set of consequences that are really associated with it. And sitting is the same.
JEANNETTE: Yes.
KATY: All right. I hope everyone is standing up right now and thinking about ...
JEANNETTE: This is my longest period of sitting during my week is our podcast. Because I sit on the floor because of my setup. We'll talk about this another time though. Because you and I are both standing ninjas because that's how we normally work. So for me I'm fidgeting because I'm not used to it.
KATY: There's another benefit. You can podcast. Sitting allows you to use your podcast setup. Yet another benefit. So I think that you can recognize all that's great about sitting and use it. And also, I'm working on a new book. I actually am almost finished with a new book that is all about the psychology of movement. I'm co-writing it with Dr. Diana Hill, a psychologist that I've worked with before. And there is this little bit - she's offered so much information. And I think that paying attention, actually focusing, shining your intentional light on certain things, is what I was imagining. You know when you're sitting, we sit so much. I don't even think we are shining our intentional light of "now I'm getting rest." It feels so good to be supported in this cushiony way. I'm so thankful that this is here. I'm really enjoying the benefit of sitting. I'm having a conversation with someone. We just sort of do it without thinking. We're tuning out from the effects of our body so we no longer hear, "this amount of sitting isn't working for me." You're hearing it but you're not translating it into those words. It's just more like, "I've got a problem with my low back. I don't know why it keeps going out." It's so separated from these all day habits. And that was another thing about why you can't exercise off the benefits of exercise. You gave a really beautiful explanation of what's happening on the cellular level and why we can't really think about terms of exercising off sitting time. But also a lot of the effects of sitting are more benign. They're low back pain, achiness, a lack of attention, brain fog. And if you're in the space right now and you're having those experiences right now, it doesn't matter if you exercise later on. Those are not doing anything about the way...
JEANNETTE: The discomfort in the moment.
KATY: ...in the moment that you are experiencing it. So I just feel like we just want to, you know, just in the same way that hopefully people have moved on from the idea of exercising off the food that you eat, I think we want to move away from these deeper thoughts of "I'm going to exercise off the fact that I sat all day." It doesn't work that way.
JEANNETTE: Right. It doesn't. No.
KATY: It doesn't work like that. And hopefully there will be a beautiful article one day out there that's written by someone who is a much better writer and concise and who can help get that idea across.
JEANNETTE: Yeah. That would be amazing. Maybe there's a listener out there.
KATY: Maybe there's a listener out and until then, we have this 100,000 word podcast that you can listen to. While you're on a walk. So we're winning either way. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode all about the nuances of sitting. This episode has been brought to you by our Dynamic Collective: Wildling, MoveMate, Peluva, Correct Toes, Venn Design, and Smart Playrooms . Thank you very much for supporting our podcast. And for all of you, don't forget to send any questions you have to podcast@nutritiousmovement.com
(Theme Music)
Hi, my name is Michelle from Toronto. This has been Move Your DNA with Katy Bowman and Jeannette Loram, a podcast about movement. We hope you find the general information in this podcast informative and helpful, but it is not intended to replace medical advice and should not be used as such. This podcast is edited by Carrie Day, transcribed by Annette Yen, and our theme music is performed by Dan MacCormack. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to audio. And find more about Katy, her books, and her movement programs at NutritiousMovement.com.
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