Study tracks older women's sedentary habits

Older women spend two-thirds of their day not moving around, generally getting up every half hour for periods of movement, according to a study designed to help researchers understand patterns of sedentary behavior.

About 32 percent of all sedentary time occurred in blocks of at least 30 minutes, while about 12 percent occurred for at least 60 minutes, according to a research letter published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study of more than 7,000 women with an average age of 71 is one of the first to quantify how sedentary they are during the day. Future studies will examine what role movement outside of exercise has on health, said Eric Shiroma, the study's lead author. He is a researcher in preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The researchers will follow the women to see how sitting or standing in place for many hours each day can affect heart disease, cancer and diabetes risk, he said.

The research included participants in the Women's Health Study who in 2011 joined an additional investigation assessing physical activity using accelerometers. They were asked to wear an accelerometer for seven days while awake.

The study showed that women spent about 66 percent of their waking day in sedentary behavior, totaling about 9.7 hours a day. -- Bloomberg News