Marek Stój

Sitting Considered Deadly

I assume your well-being is quite important to you. Then, do you do anything to take care of your health? Maybe you go for a run regularly or visit a gym? Practice yoga? Play squash? The thing is, it does not matter as much as you might think it does. Even if you exercise in leisure time on a regular basis, you spend most of your workday on your buttocks and that, as it turns out, is very unhealthy.

There is now 3 decades worth of research linking sedentary lifestyle to myriad health problems. What is even worse, you can not completely mitigate the risks by just exercising because prolonged sitting still wreaks havoc in your body.

So is there anything we can do about it? The solution is actually quite simple and yet very difficult to implement due to a combination of factors like our cultural upbringing, psychosocial barriers as well as all the technological advancements of the last century that cater to our lazy human nature and render us immobile.

In this talk, I can only show you the first step to getting out of your chair. You are the one that has to take it. Nevertheless, I believe that by uniting the IT industry around an idea, that I will tell you about, we will be able to stand it up and fight for our health.