Research

Energy balance

Occupational sitting (work sitting ≥3 hours/day) is associated with weaker and sparser adverse biomarker associations compared to leisure-time television viewing, and these associations are also mediated by BMI.

Sitting at work for 3+ hours a day is linked to slightly worse biomarkers (like lower HDL) than sitting for 0-1 hour, but the effect is weaker than watching TV for the same amount of time. This might be because work sitters often have other favorable lifestyle factors. Focusing on reducing leisure-time sitting (like TV) might yield greater health benefits.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Associations with work sitting were weaker (triglycerides higher by 3.0% (1.3%, 4.7%) and HDL-cholesterol lower by 1.2% (0.5%, 1.9%) per category increase in work sitting) or absent.
Snehal M. Pinto Pereira et al. · PLoS ONE · 2012

Why this rating

Large cohort, cross-sectional, adjusted for confounders.

Source

Sedentary Behaviour and Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes in Mid-Life: The Role of Television-Viewing and Sitting at Work

Snehal M. Pinto Pereira et al. · PLoS ONE · 2012

DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0031132

cross_sectional · n=7660Cited 170×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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