I was riding the bus the other day and noticed something that has been in front my eyes the whole time. The bus was half full and making its regular stops. When riders boarded the 117 bus line, they filed in and took a seat. As I began to look around, everybody was sitting and I was the only one standing. This wasn’t about me or the other people on the bus. I soon realized that in a world full of sitting not everyone gets to stand.
We have recommendations on how to attack this sitting problem: move every 30 minutes, and reduce sitting time by 2 hours each day. Yet, discussion regarding whether the world is ready or not has escaped commentary. That is, can the world we live in can readily support any of these health recommendations?
So, as I stand there at the back door of the bus. I begin to think. Even if I had a magic wand, and could successfully motivate individuals instantly to get up and move about, the environment (the bus) does not physically support it. There are only so many seats that people can sit in and so many places you can stand.
I have been a big proponent of getting people up and active at work and in other parts of their lives. But, there exist certain circumstances (like the bus example) that prevent everyone from participating in physical activity. In this case, choosing to stand on the bus instead of sitting.
Now, I ponder how sitting recommendations and environments can coexist. In most places, standing is “optional” (credit to Dr. Kelly Starrett for this term; see his book Deskbound). Standing is optional in the sense that, in any given situation, you have the choice to either sit or stand. When you board an empty bus, are you more likely to sit down or stand up?
This may depend on many things such as the length of bus trip, how long you were previously walking to the bus stop, or even how heavy your backpack is. But this is the issue that many experts are tackling…
Sitting is too often the default behavior.
Continuing with the bus-riding example, what are the typical behavior patterns you see in public transportation? Often, riders fill in all the empty seats first and then fill up the rest of the bus standing. Only when new situations present themselves do people switch from sitting to standing. This happens when elderly and children board the bus.
Now, revisiting my magic wand, sitting recommendations, and “optional” standing. If everyone I spoke to followed my advice related to too much sitting, in most places (on buses, classrooms, offices), not everyone could stand up because the environment does not support it. Imagine a bus full of people standing and not sitting. Bizarre but healthy.
Well, if environments do not currently support certain forms of physical activity (standing more), then how do we make a change?
Changes will most likely come from the following sources:
- Physical Change – Does your space allow you to stand and move about freely? Can you modify your environment by making active environments? At work, can you create a standing/active workstation? If you stop and think about it, do you really need to be sitting to keep doing what you are doing?
- Social Change – What are the written and unwritten rules of the environment that inform us how to behave? Do many people have to defy the status quo or can we advocate for political change? When riding a bus, do we have to sit down? I cannot imagine a bus driver allowing people to only stand when they are plenty of open seats. They would be losing bus fares left and right! Bus drivers may tell people to fill up seats as they pick up more people.
In conclusion, when considering which healthy behaviors should happen more often, identifying if the current environment can support those behaviors is vital. If people, places, and situations do not support any recommendations both physically and socially, then the behavior intended to change (e.g., standing more) will not stick around for long…
However, until public policy catches up, individual efforts must begin to go against the grain (strategy #4) by reorganizing our environments and breaking social norms. This is necessary to make progress in the right direction and make the world a better place. I do it all the time!
Join me! And keep moving my friends,
-Nick
