“Everything causes cancer,” Tom Eckart blurts out. What a common phrase used when asked about what causes cancer. Answers range from cell phones to microwaves to artificial sweeteners. But this one has been unknown to WHB students, and we surprisingly do this act most of our school day. Sitting.

Now not to scare everyone, it is not just the act of sitting but more specifically prolonged sitting. I would like to point out that as high school students, we sit about 40 minute periods for 6 hours a day on average. So this applies to us WHB students particularly.

Although you may be thinking how ridiculous it sounds, consider this: a study by an epidemiologist at Alberta Health Services in Canada found that 173,000 cases of cancer of per year may be caused by this.  Also, at the American Institute for Cancer Research conference, they said that includes 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43000 cases of colon cancer.

Girls beware! Alma Patel of the American Cancer Society found that death-by-sitting syndrome affects woman far more than it does men. She also found that among individuals who were regularly active, the risk of dying prematurely was higher among those who spent more time sitting.

Exercising doesn’t even completely rid this, although it helps. Christine Friedenreich, PhD says that in studies on exercise and breast cancer, the most active people reduced their risk 20% or 30%, compared to the least active. For colon cancer, studies showed that people who exercised the most had a 30%-35% risk reduction compared to people who were least active, she says.

Some students, like Kelly Mead, are exercising about three hours a week, but they’re sitting for three hours each day after school doing her homework. School forces us to sit during school hours and at home.

Now what do students think should be done with this knowledge?  Kelly feels that teachers should incorporate a more hands on environment so that we don’t have to be sitting for such long periods of time.