Why standing at your desk may be little better than sitting

Illustration: Cristina Spanò

Aug 14th 2026|3 min read

PROLONGED SITTING rightly has a bad rap. A review in 2012 concluded that the most sedentary were more than twice as likely as the least to have or develop diabetes, and also faced a much higher risk of premature death. Another, in 2015, found that sitting for long stretches was associated with “deleterious health outcomes regardless of physical activity”. Three years after that an analysis of news articles in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found hundreds of pieces that referred to claims likening sitting to smoking.