Excessive sitting at work and at home: Correlates of occupational sitting and TV viewing time in working adults

Background: Recent evidence links sedentary behaviour ( or too much sitting ) with poorer health outcomes; many adults accumulate the majority of their daily sitting time through occupational sitting and TV viewing. To further the development and targeting of evidence-based strategies there is a need for identification of the factors associated with higher levels of these behaviours. This study examined socio-demographic and health-related correlates of occupational sitting and of combined high levels of occupational sitting/TV viewing time amongst working adults. Methods: Participants were attendees of the third wave ( 2011/12 ) of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle ( AusDiab ) study who worked full-time ( ≥35 h/week; n = 1,235; 38 % women; mean ± SD age 53 ± 7 years ). Logistic and multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted ( separately for women and men ) to assess cross-sectional associations of self-reported occupational sitting time ( categorised as high/low based on the median ) and also the combination of occupational sitting time/TV viewing time ( high/low for each outcome ), with a number of potential socio-demographic and health-related correlates. Results: Higher levels of occupational sitting ( > 6 h/day ) were associated with higher household income for both genders. Lower levels of occupational sitting were associated with being older ( women only ); and, for men only, having a blue collar occupation, having a technical/vocational educational attainment, and undertaking more leisure-time physical activity ( LTPA ). Attributes associated with high levels of both occupational sitting and TV viewing time included white collar occupation ( men only ), lower levels of LTPA ( both genders ), higher BMI ( men ), and higher energy consumption ( women ). Conclusions: Higher household income ( both genders ) and professional/managerial occupations ( men only ) were correlates of high occupational sitting time, relative to low occupational sitting time, while health-related factors ( lower LTPA, higher BMI – men, and higher energy consumption – women ) were associated with high levels of both occupational sitting and TV viewing time, relative to low occupational sitting and low TV viewing time. These findings suggest possible high-risk groups that may benefit from targeted interventions. Further research is needed on potentially modifiable environmental and social correlates of occupational sitting time, in order to inform workplace initiatives