According to an ANSES report made public on Tuesday, 95% of French adults are at risk of health deterioration due to lack of physical activity or too much time spent sitting.
The most at risk are the 30% of French people working 100% on screen.
20 Minutes
lists five tips for getting back into some physical activity, despite a tight schedule and working from home.
Spending eight hours screwed to one's chair, taking ten steps from the coffee machine to the computer: many sedentary jobs transform physical activity into a trickle.
Not to mention telework, which has settled into our diaries and has melted our daily trips.
However, there is urgency.
After several studies published in recent years to emphasize the importance of movement to avoid back pain, a new alert report on the subject.
According to the National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (ANSES) "95% of the adult French population is exposed to a risk of health deterioration due to lack of physical activity or too long time spent sitting.
And the diseases favored by a sedentary lifestyle are varied: cardiovascular pathologies, diabetes, but also cancers.
The promotion of physical activity must therefore become a public health priority, according to ANSES.
We would have to rethink everything: school, town planning, working time, equipment... Vast program.
“The important thing would be to recover people who would like to engage in physical activity and who cannot,” argues Irène Margaritis, head of the Nutrition Risk Assessment Unit at ANSES.
Especially for the 30% of French people who only do office work.
Easy to say ?
20 Minutes
lists five tips.
Change material
If compulsory telework due to Covid-19 has not been relevant since February 2, many companies have signed telework agreements so that their employees can work from home one or more days each week.
But everyone is not necessarily well equipped to work remotely.
It may be time to invest in a comfortable desk, a screen, a keyboard to avoid typing on a netbook, bent in two on your coffee table.
And why not opt for a sit-stand desk, which allows you to alternate positions?
“The standing desk increases metabolic activity a little and mobilizes the postural muscles,” underlines Irène Margaritis.
Our Canadian and Northern European colleagues go so far as to work on a treadmill, maybe in a few years we will find that normal…”
If it is unlikely that all French SMEs will opt for this solution, some can therefore equip themselves at home with a sit-stand desk (from 200 euros) or a desk converter, this small piece of furniture that can be placed on a normal desk whose height varies (from 100 euros).
“Provided you also invest in a sit-stand chair with a lumbar backrest, warns Christian Meignan, occupational health coordinator for the Kiné France Prévention association.
The back can carry itself when you have active work, but cannot endure 6 hours of standing still work!
"We can also work on a bar if we have one," adds Sophie Blier, sports coach.
Or buy a “tonic chair” [€149], a chair on wheels, but with a small balloon, so you're up to your desk,
we have a well-positioned pelvis and a backrest that adopts the natural curvature of the back.
»
Be careful, however, of the pilates ball.
“Why not in break rooms, but it's not an office chair, warns Christian Meignan.
Very quickly the back bends and employees can fall backwards.
»
take breaks
The second aspect on which we can play is not material, but rather a good habit to take.
“You can also break up your sedentary lifestyle: for example, walk for five minutes every hour,” continues Irène Margaritis.
If you're at the office, you take advantage of a break between two meetings to go for a walk in the fresh air with a colleague.
If we are at home, we take three minutes between two meetings to stretch, empty the dishwasher or the laundry.
“We can set alarms to remember when to get up, advises Sophie Blier.
No longer having your water bottle on your desk, but forcing yourself to drink in the kitchen or the cafeteria.
The benefits of these breaks are physical and have an impact on concentration and productivity.
It will be difficult to reach 10,000 daily steps like that,
but small streams make great rivers.
»
Take advantage of every little moment to move
Avoiding a sedentary lifestyle means betting on soft transport to do physical activity: the electric bike or not, finding a transport route to walk more, going to the bakery ten minutes away on foot rather than the one at the bottom of at home… “In the office, you can forbid yourself to use the elevator, to telephone a colleague when he is two floors above, to take a break in the cafeteria rather than in his office”, list Christian Meignan.
And when the work day is too busy and you have to be at 6 p.m. sharp at school, why not share a sports session with your kids?
Sophie Blier offers 20-minute crossfit sessions for adults, for children... and for families.
"It's fun, it builds ties, you can do it between brothers and sisters, at home or in the park," explains the coach specializing in children.
Sometimes children have trouble doing homework when they come home from school.
Parents can offer a small workout with head-down poses.
It stimulates the concentration hormones enormously.
Doing a few rolls or a handstand for a few seconds is enough!
»
Find the sport that suits you and make it a ritual
Now that the Covid-19 leaves us a little quiet and that Olivier Véran has even just announced that we could drop the mask indoors in mid-March, so in the gyms, we no longer have any excuses so as not to return to sport!
This may be the opportunity to look for a practical slot in your week, a nice team to train with, a new dance that has always made you dream.
It's up to everyone to find a (sports!) shoe that fits them.
“No study shows that one sport would be better than another, it is rather the repetition that counts: twice a week is good, recalls the physiotherapist.
And it's interesting to be supervised by a structure: association, gym, club, whatever the form, but if your group is waiting for you,
it gives you another commitment than if you have an appointment with yourselves to go running….
»
It is not Sophie Blier who will say the opposite.
“Going back to class, with friends, with a teacher, has a double advantage: you do sports for your body, your cholesterol and your diabetes, but you also nurture social ties.
It is also a course where the coach corrects us, knows us, is able to adapt the session according to the form, pain.
»
The other track is that companies take up the issue.
“Those of a certain size have an interest in installing rooms for sports, paying for group lessons, offering conferences by sports coaches, morning routines that people practice freely, insists Christian Meignan.
The worker must do his part, his health is in his interest, but the employer must encourage him to do so, because he will have employees in better shape, less sick, less arrested.
The icing on the cake: according to the Ministry of Health in Canada, an employee who practices at least one physical activity during the week is 12% more productive than a sedentary employee.
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Strasbourg
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