Long hours spent at desks and sofas leads to 21,000 deaths a year in the Netherlands from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer
Time out at a cafe in Amsterdam: while the Dutch are a sporty nation, the issue is what they do when they are not playing sport, a researcher says.Time out at a cafe in Amsterdam: while the Dutch are a sporty nation, the issue is what they do when they are not playing sport, a researcher says.The Dutch are perceived as a nation of healthy giants, leaping on their bikes to cycle energetically across flat lands.
The reason is not necessarily too little formal exercise because, unlike the British, the Dutch are among Europe’s sportiest nations. The issue is what people do the rest of the time., but that’s a very small portion of the day if you are awake for 16 hours,” said Renaud. “We are not really conscious about our. You’re not sitting on the couch – you’re watching your streaming service. You’re not sitting at the table – you’re eating your lunch.
In 2022, workers in the Netherlands sat on average for 8.9 hours a day, more than half of this during working time . Lawyers, economists and IT workers are sittersfound that 26% of Dutch people over 16 sat for more than 8.5 hours a day – well above the EU average of 11%.
Earlier this year the Dutch sports council urged the government to make people stand up more. Erik Scherder, a council member and professor of neuropsychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, says exercise also affects the brain. He invites his students to do three minutes of squats for every half an hour of lectures.
“If children are sitting all day at school and play games at home instead of playing outside, this is alarming,” he said. “The networks in your brain that are involved in motor functioning show a large overlap with those networks that are involved in mathematics and language comprehension. If you skip physical functioning, you really harm the development of your other functions.”