Luxembourg residents spend too much time sitting down, with researchers recommending breaks at work, for example for a short walk. Photo: EU

Luxembourg residents spend too much time sitting down, with researchers recommending breaks at work, for example for a short walk. Photo: EU

Even though at first glance Luxembourg meets World Health Organization standards on physical activity, the country’s residents in fact are more sedentary than those in other countries, research by the Luxembourg Institute of Health has found.

Luxembourg in 2021 adopted WHO guidelines to promote moderate physical activity of 150 to 300 minutes per week and 75 to 150 minutes of high intensity exercise. And the country consistently ranks as one of the most active in the EU, with 98% of residents meeting WHO targets.

But the Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH) has taken a closer look at the data and found that residents on average spend more than 12 hours a day sitting down.

“If only bouts of physical activity over 10 minutes are considered valid, the proportion adhering to WHO physical activity guidelines drop to just 25%,” the institute said in a press release. “Three quarters of residents don’t allot much dedicated time to physical activity.”

Women spent more time doing low impact exercise, while men were more sedentary overall but when exercising chose high intensity sports.

In addition to these already poor findings, more than one quarter of sedentary time is spent sitting down for more than one hour at a time. This compares to a rate of 6% to 10% in other EU countries.

Make time to exercise

“In a high-income post-industrial economy like Luxembourg where two thirds of the jobs are sedentary, this is perhaps not every surprising.”

The technology used for the study--accelerometers worn by 1,100 survey participants--however cannot distinguish between people sitting down or standing up, as it measures activity based on movement and velocity and cannot pick up information on posture.

People working at a standing desk, for example, would be counted as sitting down.

Still, researchers recommend breaking up long sedentary periods with periods of low intensity physical activity. Other research shows “that this would not impair productivity at work and that the health benefits would be considerable,” the LIH said.

“For most people it will be possible to replace some daily sedentary time with low intensity physical activity and evidence suggests that this will help reduce the risk of cardio-metabolic disease,” Paul Collings--lead author of the study--said.