Overweight People May Benefit From Active Breaks During Prolonged Sitting

Unlikely.

Interrupting prolonged periods of sitting with regular, two-minute breaks of light or moderate intensity activity like walking may be good for overweight and obese people's health, because new research reported recently in Diabetes Care shows it helped their bodies keep glucose and insulin levels under control after consuming the equivalent of a high calorie meal ("postprandial" levels)...

For their study, the researchers recruited 19 participants aged 45 to 65 who were either overweight or obese.

Each participant took part in three experiments, with six days break between each one.

In the first experiment they had to sit for 5 hours with no break. In the second experiment they sat for the same length of time, but every 20 minutes they walked on a treadmill at a light-intensity pace for 2 minutes. And in the third experiment, they did the same as the second, except the pace was at moderate intensity.

However, there were no data to show that any of this made a real world difference.