Ask Well: Is Lying Down as Bad for You as Sitting? The studies about the deleterious effects of sitting make me wonder if this is strictly related to the sitting posture (knees bent, back straight, feet on floor), or is it the inactivity that's the culprit? Is lying in bed as bad as sitting and reading? Reader Question • 1276 votes The short answer is that inactivity is the culprit, whether you are sitting or lying down. “The mode or type of sedentary behavior doesn’t matter,” said John P. Thyfault, an associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City who has conducted many studies of inactivity. The problem is that we don’t use our legs when we sit or lie prone. Our legs and backside contain some of the largest muscles in our body, which contract robustly when we are upright. In the process, they use blood sugar to fuel themselves and stimulate the release of biochemicals that favorably affect cholesterol levels and other metabolic processes.
None of that happens when we sit in a chair or lounge in bed. Instead, our big muscles are slack and levels of blood sugar and bad cholesterol rise. In a fascinating 2010 study co-authored by Dr. Thyfault, healthy young men were asked to make themselves sedentary. They could choose their preferred inactivity — driving to work, for instance, instead of walking or reading more in bed or sitting in front of the television for hours — as long as they got off their feet as much as possible. Within two weeks of being more sedentary, these previously healthy young men had begun to develop metabolic problems, including serious insulin resistance, whether they had spent their inactive time primarily sitting or in bed. “Lying down will have the same deleterious effects” as sitting, Dr. Thyfault said. The one exception, of course, is sleep. Our bodies need those eight hours or so of being prone in order to complete various physiological repair processes. But when we are awake, Dr. Thyfault said, the more we can stand up and move, the better.
Ask Well: Does Foot Size Affect Running? Ask Well: Remedies for Nail Fungus Ask Well: The Health Benefits of Meditation For more fitness, food and wellness news, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up for our newsletter.A heavily pregnant woman has been caught on camera hitting her baby bump with a hammer to prove how ‘hard’ her unborn child is.Heather Thorpe, 24, was filmed by her former partner, Sean Hanlon, striking herself with the claw hammer around a month before giving birth to her son, Jonathon. But when Mr Hanlon, 26, showed the video to police, officers refused to press charges, insisting no offence had been committed. Hammer: Heather Thorpe, pictured last year with weeks-old Jonathan, was filmed hitting her pregnant belly Outrageous: Ms Thorpe, having lifted up her clothes, swings with the hammer Swing: Heavily-pregnant Ms Thorpe brings the hammer into contact with her belly Contact: The tool thuds against her. Police have been shown the video but refuse to act
Yesterday Mr Hanlon said he was appalled at the police’s decision, adding: ‘If there was a film of someone hitting a baby with a hammer they would be in handcuffs in ten shot the five-second video in the couple’s living room in October last year, just weeks before Miss Thorpe’s due date. Unharmed: Mother Thorp with her baby son Jonathon - who was healthy, normal baby when he was born He said he had been filming her on his iPhone when she told him: ‘My baby’s hard as anything – just watch this.’He then began filming her as she walked over to his toolbox. clip shows Miss Thorpe lifting up her top to reveal her baby bump. then grabs the steel claw hammer and hits the side of her stomach twice, apparently not caring about the harm that could be inflicted on herHe said she had also punched herself before because ‘she wanted the baby to come out’.Mr Hanlon, a security guard from Lea Village, Birmingham, said: ‘I was completely shocked, but Heather didn’t seem to care.‘
I asked her what the hell she was doing but she just told me to stop over-reacting. Jonathon was born and he was OK.’ couple later separated and Miss Thorpe went to police, accusing Mr Hanlon of domestic violence. When officers knocked on his door last December he told them she was lying, and handed over the footage he had shot as evidence of her character. Hanlon added: ‘I couldn’t believe it when the police didn’t pressI also sent the video to social services who have been sending someone round to see her regularly, but anyone can put an act on in Thorpe’s family have claimed her current partner is Jonathon’s biological father, although the man himself has denied that. Thorpe, who now lives with her one-year-old son at the home of her parents in Chelmsley Wood, West Midlands, refused to comment yesterday. 'Spitfire': Ms Thorpe and one-year-old Jonathon recently celebrated the anniversary of her five-minute labour Attention: The mother and son made headlines when she gave birth to him almost instantly in her parents' lounge
Christening: New mother Ms Thorpe cradles baby Jonathon at his christening last year West Midlands Police investigation report of the incident, dated January 3, states that Miss Thorpe was thought to be eight months’ pregnant when the video was shot. says that a social worker estimated that, ‘On a scale of 1-10 (1 being the softest, 10 being the hardest)...the blows are around 5 or 6’. document adds that after delivering the blows, ‘Heather puts the hammer down and gestures as if to say, “See? that six weeks after Jonathon was born, Miss Thorpe bragged to social workers that he could give the ‘V-sign’ on demand. Hanlon released the video after a local paper ran a story last week about how Jonathon was a precocious ‘superkid’, quoting Miss Thorpe claiming he could walk, talk and read at the age of one. West Midlands Police spokesman said: ‘A report was received in December 2012 from a member of the public regarding footage of a pregnant woman