“sit less, move more, and move more often”

Patient (putting his hand up above his head): “Doctor, Doctor, it hurts whenever I do this. “

Doctor: “Well stop doing that.”

This joke scenario implies that some of the advice in medicine is common sense.  If something hurts, stop.  This simple logic can extend to most professions, including safety.

On August 3 2014, the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) published a perspective on the hazards of sedentary work.  The report has excellent medical evidence on the potential harm of sitting for too long.  The advice to reduce risk is simply to get up and move about.

Was such research needed?  The glib response is that research is always needed, particularly into what people think is common sense or into those ideas and actions that are entrenched and seem “self-evident” and on which some of our basic social or work institutions are based.

MJA’s article written by a leading physiotherapy academic, Professor Leon Straker with colleagues Genevieve N Healy, Rohan Atherton and David W Dunstan, uses language with which occupational health and safety professionals are very familiar.