Page 36 - Men’s Health - USA (December 2019)
P. 36
BODY
THE 9 BIGGEST LIES
IN WELLNESS
Between Instagram influencers, Reddit zealots, and the pushy guy at the supplement store,
some seriously ridiculous—and sometimes dangerous—ideas have moved from fringe
theory to health gospel. Here are the new health virtues that shouldn’t be—and a few tactics
you can use to actually improve your life. BY ALICE OGLETHORPE
1 SITTING
Is the New
Smoking
THE CLAIM: Sitting all day can
kill you (or, at the very least,
pile on the pounds); as a result,
every office has at least one
person with a mild standing-
desk superiority complex.
THE TRUTH: Standing won’t
burn more calories. “The
difference in metabolism
between sitting and standing
is almost zero,” says David
Rempel, M.D., a professor of
medicine at the University
of California, San Francisco.
Standers also have more
foot, leg, back, and joint pain,
“especially when people go
from never standing to doing
it for eight or more hours a
day,” says John-Paul D. Hezel,
M.D., a sports-medicine phys-
iatrist at Beth Israel Deacon-
ess Medical Center.
TRY THIS: Instead of thinking
“stand,” think “don’t sit all
day.” Get up and move for five
or ten minutes after every 45
spent sitting. Treadmill desks
aren’t the solution. Research
found that people’s memory
and concentration were worse
when they used them.
2 CORPORATE THE CLAIM: Meditation and THE TRUTH: When companies TRY THIS: Take advantage of
a corporate meditation class
offer these programs, the
mindfulness reduce the men-
MEDITATION tal chatter that can leave message employees hear to learn the techniques.
you exhausted and unproduc- is that stress is their fault, says But then use some of that
PROGRAMS tive. Corporations that provide Ronald Purser, Ph.D., author newfound clarity to ask the
Help You opportunities to learn and of McMindfulness. This takes company if there are other
pressure off the higher-ups to
practice these include
ways it can help cut down
Work Google, Apple, and Nike. truly reduce burnout, he says. on employee stress overall.
34 December 2019 / MEN’S HEALTH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MATT CHASE
