Today’s post comes from researchers Salomé Aubert and Fabien Rivière, and describes their recent review of the content of sedentary behaviour questionnaires.  More on Salomé and Fabien can be found at the bottom of this post.  Their full paper is available for free here. Background Sedentary behaviours (SB) are defined as “as any waking behaviour characterized by an energy expenditure ≤1.5 METs while in a sitting, reclining or lying posture” [1]. Health effects of sedentary time have been…

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Today’s post comes from Professor Stuart Biddle, of the University of Southern Queensland.  More on Professor Biddle, and links to papers cited in this article, can be found at the bottom of this post. I have been studying sedentary behaviour for some time now. In 2001 we were funded by the British Heart Foundation to study sedentary behaviour patterns in teenagers (e.g., Gorely, Marshall, Biddle, & Cameron, 2007). At the same time we decided to…

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Today’s post comes from Dr Paddy Dempsey.  You can find more about Dr Dempsey’s work at the bottom of this post. To request copies of the papers described in this article, visit his profile on ResearchGate. Globally, over half a billion people are projected to have type 2 diabetes (T2D) by 2035, around 10% of the population. In Australia alone, around 280 new people are diagnosed with T2D every day – costing the healthcare system…

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Earlier this year I posted an article by Dr Stephanie Prince, summarizing the questionnaires that are currently available for measuring sedentary behaviour.  That project led to the creation of a new questionnaire for measuring sedentary behaviour, called the ISAT (available here).  As a follow-up, I am currently running several projects examining how well the ISAT measures sedentary behaviour.  One of those projects is being done via an online questionnaire, which is described below.  To sign…

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The use of anabolic steroids has been observed in essentially all levels of sport – from the high-school football team to professional sports. In professional body building, steroid use is as much part of the sport as is the training, tanning, and body waxing. Rumors also swirl around male Hollywood actors who must get in incredible shape to convincingly play a superhero within tight timelines. Have you ever wondered how much of an advantage steroid…

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  Do any of us ever really know what we’re capable of? How often do you test your limits, or try to push past your pre-conceived notions of what you can do? If you’ve never been in the military, for example, or have never voluntarily put yourself through some trying feats of physical labour (think running a marathon, doing an ironman, climbing a mountain, etc.), you likely have a very low threshold for discomfort and…

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A few years ago we were with my wife’s family for the holidays.  I often read a lot over the holidays, and at the time I was doing most of my reading on my iPad.  This was before my son was born, so I could easily read for 1-2 hours/day during the holidays.  So I was on my iPad an awful lot. At one point my mother-in-law asked what I was working on.  At the…

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Article: Prince SA, LeBlanc AG, Colley RC, Saunders TJ. Measurement of sedentary behaviour in population health surveys: a review and recommendations. PeerJ 2017;5:e4130. Travis’ Note: Today’s post comes from friend and colleague Dr Stephanie Prince, and details a recent collaboration in which we (along with Drs Allana LeBlanc and Rachel Colley) reviewed the current questionnaires available for measuring sedentary behaviour, and offer evidence-based suggestions for moving forward.  The result is the International Sedentary Assessment Tool,…

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Today I’d like to revisit an issue which is becoming a bit of a holiday tradition here at Obesity Panacea. How much weight do people gain over the holidays?   If you ask many people, they will say that the average person gains somewhere around 10 lbs, which is a pretty substantial amount (over a 10 year period, that would mean people were gaining roughly 100 lbs from the holiday season alone!).  This idea has…

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Today’s post comes from Dr Eun-Young Lee. More on Dr Lee can be found at the bottom of this post.  New Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years were launched in November 20171. The new guidelines include general and specific recommendations for three movement behaviours, namely, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep, for three different age groups (i.e., infants, toddlers, and preschoolers). For toddlers (aged 1 to 2 years) in particular, the specific recommendations include:…

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