Stand Down Ontie, Stand Down Please, Stand Down Ontie

I've wanted to talk about this for a couple of weeks but never got around to it. Thanks to Paul from Friendfeed for highlighting this ABC news story:

Scientists have found intriguing evidence that one major reason so many people are overweight these days may be as close as the seat of their pants. Literally. According to the researchers, most of us sit too much.

In most cases, exercise alone, according to a team of scientists at the University of Missouri, isn't enough to take off those added pounds. The problem, they say, is that all the stuff we've heard the last few years about weight control left one key factor out of the equation. When we sit, the researchers found, the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat just shut down.

This goes way beyond the common sense assumption that people who sit too much are less active and thus less able to keep their weight under control. It turns out that sitting for hours at a time, as so many of us do in these days of ubiquitous computers and electronic games and 24-hour television, attacks the body in ways that have not been well understood.

And they may not be well understood today. According to addchoices.com, both Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway used stand-up desks, and I don't see them joining Nicole Richie for photo ops.

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