If sitting is bad for our health, should we be squatting more instead?
If you are sitting down to read this article , you may be doing your resting wrong, according to a fascinating new study of hunter-gatherer tribespeople and how they idle. The study finds that hunter-gatherers tend to lounge about during the day almost as much as those of us in the developed world. But their approach to inactivity is distinctive, involving no chairs and plenty of squatting. This difference could have implications for our metabolic and heart health and also raises questions about how and why our style of sitting seems to be so unhealthy. Our bodies may be evolutionarily adapted to continual muscular activity, something we don’t achieve with chairs. It is something of a paradox that inactivity is associated with ill health in so much of the world. Rest, after all, seems as if it should be good for us. But study after study links more time spent sitting with increased risks for poor cholesterol profiles, heart disease, diabetes and other conditions, even among peo...