Talk:Sedentary lifestyle

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 January 2020 and 25 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Svila010.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

A Few Things...
The biological definition of sedentary is irrelevant to the subject of this article.

The medical definition and National Health Interview Survey information need verifiable citations. I don't know that I have the resources to track these down. JWCurtis2003 (talk) 17:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * the medical definition currently in the article seems very fishy to me. Nobody would seriously suggest anybody in a military boot camp, for instance, is leading a sedentary lifestyle and yet typically there is no leisure-time whatever in such circumstances.Zebulin (talk) 10:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Many Islam were actually Sedentary they find medicine & would cures for diseases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.129.72.53 (talk) 05:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "Sedentary" currently links here to "Sedentary lifestyle" which is inappropriate when the "Sedentary" link is someplace like Redeye gaper, a fish which surely we should not criticize for its choice of lifestyle. Tempshill (talk) 23:35, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Sedentary lifestyle vs. post-industrialism
Does anyone know any sources that support the idea that the sedentary lifestyle is a result of post-industrialism? I know there's a few minor facts out there (e.g., that Amish live a pre-industrial lifestyle, and thus only sit for a half hour a day and need to consume 5000 calories per day to do their daily labour). But has anyone actually gone into detail about how the sedentary lifestyle is a result of post-industrial economy? I mean, this article seems almost to blame people for living a sedentary lifestyle, when it seems the truth is that people no longer can get any exercise from work (their main source in the past) and their neighbourhoods and cities are not conducive even to leisure exercise. In short I guess there's an opportunity to expand this article by putting forward this sort of analysis. I'm sure this isn't WP:OR or WP:SYN, and there are already books on the topic. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:48, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

relation with obesity
"It is known to contribute to obesity"

Really? Sedentary lifestyle as such does not contribute to obesity. What contributes to obesity is of course eating more than you burn. Should we remove this nonsense with no citations? - MexicanFish (talk) 15:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This article is written terribly. It has plenty of uncited claims and promotes an active lifestyle. It's like it was written by a former overweight, anti-social person that just discovered life outside his front door and wants to improve the world by telling us "just how better" he is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.123.30.85 (talk) 18:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * "Eating more than you burn" is a two-fold idea: you can burn less (sedentary lifestyle) or eat more. For a variety of reasons, including cultural reasons, as people reduced the amount of  physical effort spent in both work and non-work related activities, they didn't necessarily reduce their consumption. So yes indeed, a sedentary lifestyle can contribute to obesity. 69.29.207.109 (talk) 14:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Deep vein thrombosis
Echoing some of the above comments, when I first saw the article, I did find it rather bland and not particularly informative. Does any one have any references for the possibility that sitting inactive for long periods of time may lead to deep vein thrombosis? I am not a medical expert, so I would not wish to pursue the possibility, but I have vague recollections of news story at the start of the zeros of a teacher who developed DVT after sitting still marking for a long time. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC) As for the bit on obesity, I found that something of a truism. The way the article cites this information is to use weasel words and uncited claims - but there must be more thorough, specific, technical but still accessible resources giving evidence as to whether increase in obesity has been correlated with decrease in physical activity. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 16:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Citing sources
I have taken up the task of citing the claims of this article. I will remove information I am unable to verify through reliable sources. This will take a few days because I tend to work a little bit at a time SirGrant (talk) 09:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

 * I am advocating that we merge Couch Potato into this. The term couch potato is just a slang term for a sedentary lifestyle and isn't really encyclopedic.  I just think we should have a redirect SirGrant (talk) 10:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes merge. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Correlation is not causation ...
The information provided by this article is scientifically incorrect, because a high statistical correlation found in the source material does not mean that there is a causal connection between a sedative lifestyle and the mentioned diseases. If you are sick and suffer from diseases, of course you reduce your activity level. It is impossible to distinguish between cause and effect in correlational studies so the information that a sedative lifestyle causes or increases the likelihood of developing diseases is wrong and not supported by the studies. Example: The statistical correlation between people that lost a leg and low activity is also very high. But that does not mean that a low activity causes people to loose their legs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.202.49.109 (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Sedentary time
The "sedentary time" is associated with badness even in those who also engage in physical activity 10.7326/M14-1651 (systematic review and meta-analysis). JFW &#124; T@lk  09:25, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

19th Century Sedentary Lifestyles = Loss of Appetite
I think this article could probably use a History section. Today, it’s commonly accepted that a sedentary lifestyle promotes obesity. However, this was rarely the case during the 19th century. When 19th century Americans led a sedentary lifestyle, they tended to lose their appetites.

From: A cyclopædia of practical receipts and … information on the arts, manufactures, and trades (1880)

"Deficiency or loss of appetite…is a common consequence of sedentary life."

The cure for a low appetite from a sedentary lifestyle was regular exercise.

From: The Physiology of Digestion (1836)

"The fact of Nature having meant the inactive and indolent to eat and drink less than the busy and laborious, is established not only by the diminished appetite and impaired digestion of human beings who lead a sedentary life, as contrasted with the keen relish and rapid digestion usually attendant on active exertion in the open air, but on a yet broader scale by the analogy of other animals."

From: The Influence of Civic Life, Sedentary Habits, and Intellectual Refinement, on Human Health, and Human Happiness (1820)

"“A man, after full living, sedentary avocations, and irregular hours, begins to feel loss of appetite, head-ache, drowsiness, depression of spirits, fickleness of temper, with sense of fullness, and uneasiness on pressure in the right side…”"

From: The New American Encyclopædia (1865)

…Extreme indulgence in confectionery, pastry, iced creams and sweetmeats, ruins both the teeth and the digestive organs; and yet the natural appetite craves none of these, or seldom and in small proportions…

...Sedentary life, in civilized society, requires, in many instances, a sort of artificial stimulus in food and drink, unnecessary to a person living and working in the open air.”

Today, it is difficult for us to comprehend that the 1865 edition of The New American Encyclopædia says our natural appetite does not crave lots of refined sugar. You’d never guess, given the modern appetite. And the loss of appetite, from a sedentary lifestyle, appears again and again in the 19th century literature. (One theory is that food fortification and modern junk food, introduced since WWII, stimulated appetites in the sedentary during the 20th century.)

At any rate, a sedentary lifestyles often promoting obesity was a recent phenomenon and something else is may be promoting obesity in the modern sedentary lifestyle.

Shouldn't we at least mention that a Sedentary Lifestyle used to commonly cause a loss of appetite? JamesPem (talk) 00:02, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

New section on the sedentary work environment
Hello,

The recent edits to the Sedentary Lifestyle wiki page were added as part of a class assignment. We were instructed to contribute to an existing page however if the large amount of content on the sedentary work environment is off topic for the sedentary lifestyle page, we are happy to create a new page. The content is not copy and pasted, we have thoroughly cited our sources.

Please advise. 3trist (talk) 15:01, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your work is certainly welcome but needs to comply with guidelines stated at the top of this page, especially for sources. This article is a medical topic, so its sources should meet WP:MEDRS, i.e., systematic reviews, for quality. Proceed incrementally with one topic at a time. Comments on your previous sections:


 * History - discussion of workplace sedentary activities can be reduced to a brief statement and review source, as this is not on-topic for "lifestyle"
 * Health risks - the first paragraph was generally ok (although the statement needs a better reference), but there's a deviation from topic on lifestyle to explain metabolic syndrome which has a WP article and does not need to be re-explained. Again, the "solutions" section under Health risks is about workplace and is off-topic
 * Policy - more workplace discussion not on-topic for lifestyle
 * In summary, your discussion of the workplace can be reduced to its own section with 2-3 sentences, but needs stronger references, if they exist. Current Cochrane review, ref 22, covers this, although itself, is not a strong analysis. PMID 28351367 is more on-topic for lifestyle. --Zefr (talk) 16:09, 27 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:41, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

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