A little dramatic?

Yes. Kind of accurate?

Kind of yes.

Hey everyone, Laci Green here for DNews.

Is anyone else slightly terrified of losing independence when you get old?

It's sort of like an ongoing existential crisis that's destroying my youthful years.

Of course, declining health in old age is a good incentive to stay healthy, physically, and emotionally, which means eating right and getting moderate exercise in every week, right?

Wrong! That's apparently still not good enough.

At least according to a new study published in the Journal of Physical Activity & Health, the researchers at Harvard, Northwestern, and the CDC found that

while getting your 150 minutes a week of exercise is important for maintaining good health,

it might not provide the same kind of protection as, say... getting off your butt and not sitting so much.

The scientists found that sedentary hours were a better predictor than moderate exercise when it comes to things like

being able to get around the house, being able to feed yourself, staying out of nursing homes, and general independence when you're old.

For every hour of sitting, there was a 46% decrease in the ability to perform everyday tasks in those over 60.

Researchers also found that those most likely to be sitting too much were

older, male, more educated but less wealthy, smokers, and those who have chronic illnesses.

Their research attributes 5.3 million deaths per year, worldwide, to sitting.

Other studies have found that for every hour of TV watched when you're older than 25, 22 minutes are shaved off your lifespan.

YIKES! It's like a 21st century nightmare straight out of Wall-E.

Sitting is obviously a huge problem and it's not something that we talk or really think about so much,

at least not as much as diet and exercise.

It seems that as we shift away from manual labor types of jobs to computer-based desk jobs, sitting is becoming harder and harder to avoid.

But there is hope yet!

The researchers say that gradually moving toward standing more or getting more steps into your day can have a dramatic effect.

As little as an extra half hour per day of not sitting can improve your long-term health.

I've started to notice standing desks or treadmill desks getting more popular.

It seems like we're just gonna need to make some adaptation to stay healthy with this emerging 21st century lifestyle.

Now, the researchers are now looking into the question of ok so "just how much sitting is *too much*?"

So folks, how much do you sit every day?

Tell us the number down below and we'll see if we can get a little DNews average.

Thanks for joining me!

I'll see you next time.