If sitting is the new smoking, how do we attack the problem?  There is no second hand sitting!

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A new study links too much sitting to diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer.  It has been said that "sitting is the new smoking."

So, if that's true, can we attack the sedentary lifestyle concerns the same way the government went after smoking the last few decades?

One big problem... there is no second hand sitting.

Government was able to shut down a lot of smoking in public because of the negative impacts second hand smoke has on people near smokers.  Courts upheld laws to limit smokers' rights because their actions directly threatened the health of others.

The same tactic won't work for sitting.  You are not directly threatening my health when you choose to sit around.  

So, what - if anything - should government do to combat the sitting epidemic?

One person texted me at 870870 to insist the problem is sugar, not sitting.  Well there is no second hand sugar either.

Another text insisted this is not government's problem.

"When did it become the government's or your job to protect me from my bad habits," the message asked.

The truth is that diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer do cost tax dollars to treat patients at public hospitals, and costs taxpayers through Medicaid expenses.

So does that justify laws to crack down on sugar and sitting?

Some have suggested that parents be held responsible if they raise fat kids.

Here are some of the other text messages:
  • Do you think America is overly legislated? I do. They keep passing laws against smaller and pickier things, soon they're going to have a law telling us how to breathe
  • Sugar is just as addictive as heroin weed and tobacco. Try and quit all sugars for 12 hrs
  • Don't believe the Hype.It not the sitting it the sugar they put in the food that causing all the diseases.
  • I have a FAT kid. He's an active 7 year old and we limit his junk food intake and have him in a kids Cross fit program. He weighs 97 lbs! Also have a super skinny kid who isn't in an organized program. Government/shovernment!
  • When gov't starts passing laws against or own behaviour versus ourselves you're getting into dictatorship by committee
  • I am a totally blind individual who works full time sitting at a desk. A lot of itmes, I rather stand because I sit all day; yet, when I enter a room, someone is always insisting that I sit down. So, I am one who tries to help this report, but society insist I do what the report says.
  • My kid lost recess after he became homeschooled. Got chunky. So we put him on a diet and make him exercise. We all run together now.
  • The report was talking about skinny not about fat people skinny people sit too much also
  • I sit in a crane all day so sitting is required .