When I was about eight years old and growing up among bougainvillea and oil fields, I hated to sit in class all day.
I would stand at my desk and diligently do my work.
“Please sit,” the best teacher in the world Sr Catherine Therese would plead. “Would you like another chair?’’
“No, please, Sister,” I would reply sweetly each time. “I like standing.” I was such a polite cute thing in those days, which is further proof that anyone can change if she really works at it.
Sister Catherine generally didn’t trouble trouble unless it troubled her, so I was allowed to be my contrarian self—after all, I got good grades, didn’t pull the wings off insects, and got along with my classmates. So what if I wanted to be minor rebel?
But eight year olds don’t run rebellions very well. I had no followers in the Stand Up movement. And I was soon conquered by a fire-breathing dragon as terrifying as any swarming the skies on Game of Thrones.
My friend June (who grew up to be a chemical engineer) was seated at the desk across the aisle and she signalled to me to sit. “No,” I silently mouthed back. Then, suddenly I felt a spank on my bottom and a firm hand on my shoulder. Unheralded (I did not detect the odour of sulphur) the principal had entered the classroom and had crept up behind me, to deliver the punishment.
Now, when it is too late to save my waistline, I discover I was right all along.
Experts now say that our bottoms are killing us.
Think of all those artery-clogging, varicose-vein-inducing, metabolic-slowing hours spent going through emails, making calls and writing proposals and eating lunch while seated at our desks. Then you drive home and sit some more in front of the TV or computer. Prolonged sitting is associated with higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, depression, muscle and joint problems—and significant frumpiness.
Some even warn that the office chair (even the $26,000 luxury vibrating kind for electrifying executives) are worse for our health than smoking. And you know the crazy, wicked thing? Even working out vigorously before or after work may not compensate for extending sitting.
The British Journal of Sports Medicine says we should begin to stand, move and take breaks for at least two out of eight hours at work. Then, we should gradually work up to spending at least half of our eight-hour work days in what researchers call “light-intensity activities.”
The idea is to stand while talking on the phone, use the steps instead of the elevator, hold standing meetings (Queen Elizabeth II keeps people standing in some official meetings but the idea there is to ensure brevity), walk over to a colleague’s desk instead of sending an email.
Simple stuff, the experts say. The point is to just get off your rear end.
My eight-year-old-self is proof positive that the Stand Up movement has merit. Back then, I was the first to be picked for the “rounders” team on Fridays and I beat the boys in races. I hung upside down on the jungle gym. I turned cartwheels. I was fearless when it came to running, jumping and trying new things.
After I had that spanked out of me, what happened? By puberty, I had turned into a shy overeating (but still fabulous) drone, persecuted by her bathroom scale and unable to catch or throw a ball.
Had I kept standing, I could have been as famous and clever as Winston Churchill, who used a standing desk.
Today, convertible, adjustable standing desks are catching on. English exercise scientist Dr John Buckley programmed his sit/stand desk to notify him on his computer to change his posture every 30 minutes.
Scandinavian workers use treadmill desks so they can walk, and possibly whistle, while they work.
James Levine, an obesity expert at the Mayo Clinic, says the reason some people seem to eat a lot, never work out, yet never put on weight, is because they’re standing, walking and moving more throughout the day, rather than sitting for hours on end.
Now, that’s just being cruel, James. If it were that simple, I would be elbowing Lupita Nyong’o off the red carpet by now.
But there is a lot to be said for getting off our rear ends to improve our ends. Ernest Hemingway wrote in a letter in 1950: “Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”
Another reason to emulate Papa Hemingway. Also, I have a fear of losing bone mass and becoming the Amazing Shrinking Woman. So a stroll in the sunshine during work breaks can only help me hang on to the five feet five inches allotted unto me.
Now, when you hear “Bottoms up,” you will know what I really mean—and you, me and my inner eight-year-old child will have some stand-up fun in the sun.
• Show me your motion at wrenchelsa@hotmail.com