Sitting for long hours accounts for 4% of deaths worldwide

Nearly four per cent of all deaths worldwide -or 4,33,000 per year -are due to the fact that people spend more than three hours a day sitting, a study conducted in 54 countries has claimed.

Researchers, including those from Spain’s San Jorge University , estimated the proportion of deaths attributable to the “chair effect” using data from 2002 to 2011.

‘It is important to minimise sedentary behaviour in order to prevent premature deaths,” said lead author Leandro Rezende. He noted reducing the amount of time we sit by about two hours (50%) would mean a 2.3% decrease in mortality .

The results show that over 60% of people worldwide spend more than three hours a day sitting down -the average in adults is 4.7 hours per day .

Among the territories studied, there were more deaths in the regions of the Western Pacific, followed by European countries, the Eastern Mediterranean, America and southeast Asia.The highest rates were found in Lebanon (11.6%) and the Netherlands (7.6%) while the lowest rates were in Mexico (0.6%) and Myanmar (1.3%).