Well, our evolution over the milennia has been towards the primary hunter-gatherer species on the planet. It's just the excesses of modern civilization that allows us to sit on our ass and gorge ourselves. Simple convenience, if you give a wild animal a choice between food for hard work or food for almost no work at all, it's going to sit flat down on it's ass and get chubby too.

It's nothing unnatural, but I do believe 1-2 hours of physical activity a day is required to maintain the most desirable level of health and physical fitness, biologically speaking.

Well, as I said earlier, I think that those statistics are nonsense. In reality, everything is tied together - if you sit a lot, it's likely you'll eat more too, or you'll sit more because you're overweight, or because you have a disability and can't move much, etc. etc. etc. They basically don't (and rarely do) properly analyse all the info to come to a realistic conclusion. Because of that, people feel like they're being duped (and in a way, they ARE).

It reminds me of those "health freaks" on TV who say "only eat fresh stuff, boo canned food" while in reality almost no-one has time to cook like that. Just cooking vegetables takes a lot longer AND more vitamins are lost cooking vegetables than vegetables in a tin so it's not exactly true that canned food is bad - au contraire. It's just this "health cult" that is the bad egg at the moment where practical solutions are shunned even if they're healthy enough (and a lot cheaper, often).

Statistics aside, I think there is a lot of truth in the idea that we were not built to sit all day long every day. I do think a job that keeps you moving is generally healthier.

Not to his dramatic extent though.

"Sitting increases risk of death up to 40%"

Hey, wait, does that mean if I don't sit down anymore my chances at immortality increase significantly? Then it's definitely worth the effort of standing up, hurray!

Unless it means there is a significant increase in the chance of dropping dead on the spot once you have taken a seat - death by sitting, a shockingly common occurence in our times, I fear. Hm...

I think this means if you don't sit anymore you will have a chance to NEVER DIE.

Immortality, never been so simple.

But wait. What if you're sitting being already dead?

I don't know, I wouldn't call it simple. I bet they're lying about the immortality because they know noone will ever be able to find out if it's true. ;)

Well, the chance of dead people dying is around 0%, so raising it by 40% is... still 0%. Unless we're dealing with percentage points here, of course...

I find lying easier than sitting ;-)

But, by being alive, your chance of dropping dead is about 100%. So sitting and being alive is 140% chances of dying? It means youll die before you sit on that chair?

Heh, that's true. :D

I guess that would make dead people ... immortal! :o

Huh... Let's think about it on a slightly bigger scale. Imagine two groups of 100 people. Group A were "sitting-avoiders" and Group B were "sitters".
Out of 100 people from group A, 100 died.
Out of 100 people from group B, 140 died.

So sitting 8 hours at work and then 10 more hours at home is not good for me? Who knew!

Not sure I have the willpower to fix this though. At least obesity is not an issue for me, but I do have a problem with my HDL (good cholesterol) being waaaaay low.

Meh, I'll just get rid of my legs and butt. Can't be considered sitting if I don't have anything below the stomach.

Did those 100 people like... sit on other people & kill them aswell? I'm just wondering how a test group of 100 lead to 140 dying.

40 of them were pregnant

I'd say the vast majority of people died standing up. Think of all the soldiers who have been killed in history, all the people who were killed during a mugging... Then again, sitting down outside is also dangerous since that would include people sitting behind the wheel in a vehicle, and that's a dangerous thing to do, statistically. I'm going to stay sitting here at my desk and at least I know that when I die, it'll be on my terms - and I'm pretty sure I can't crash this office chair into anything at a fatal speed, despite my efforts to use it like an indoor car.