Hours behind your laptop during the day. Then the gym in the evening and you’re done, right?
Unfortunately, the body doesn’t work that way. Prolonged sitting is a health risk in itself, which does not simply disappear because you work out three times a week.
Research shows that excessive sitting increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and premature death. Large studies find that people who sit 11 hours per day or more have up to a 30–40% higher mortality risk than those who sit less—even if they are otherwise reasonably active. That’s a sobering fact for anyone with a desk job.
In the Netherlands, we are champions of sitting. Employees sit on average 8.7 hours per day, and nearly 4 million people sit more than 6 hours on a working day. Often in long uninterrupted blocks: meetings, emails, Teams calls, car rides. Meanwhile, blood circulation slows, pressure on the back and neck increases, and the body becomes less sensitive to insulin.
It is important to understand: “too little exercise” and “too much sitting” are two different problems. Exercise remains essential for fitness, strength, and resilience. But one intense hour in the gym does not make eight hours of sitting healthy. Sitting is not rest, but a repetitive strain.
The good news: the solution does not have to be complicated. It is not about perfect training, but about breaking long sitting periods. For example:
• Stand up every 30–45 minutes and walk for 1–2 minutes
• Take walking calls instead of sitting for everything
• Short standing meetings
• Place printers, coffee machines, and bins a few extra steps away [arboportaal]
Etc., etc.
For HR and employers, this is a clear responsibility. Vitality is more than a gym membership or a one-off workshop. It is about designing a workday where movement and recovery are natural. That means structuring schedules, meetings, and workplaces so that less sitting becomes the default.
At Employcare, we help organizations continuously monitor and improve workplace health. We don’t just look at who drops out, but at the patterns before that: sitting behavior, workload, recovery, physical and mental complaints. This turns “less sitting” from a good intention into part of daily work.
So the question is not: do your employees exercise enough? The better question is: how long do they sit continuously, and what will you change tomorrow?
