Abstract

People who spend considerable time in a seated position are at greater risk of premature death from conditions such as cardiovascular diseases. For this reason, RIVM has catalogued how many hours various segments of the Dutch population spend in a seated position every day and the activities they engage in during that time. Over the years, the number of hours spent in a seated position has gone up slightly from an average of 8.7 hours per day in 2015 to an average of 9.1 hours per day in 2021. On a weekday, people spent more time in a sedentary position than on a weekend day.

People are more sedentary during work. In addition, the cause of increased sedentary behaviour has been the growing number of hours spent engaged in sedentary leisure activities, such as the use of computer, tablet or smartphone or watching television. Other sedentary leisure activities are chatting, eating, reading, completing jigsaw puzzles, doing arts and crafts, playing a musical instrument and going to the cinema. In contrast, people are less sedentary during school/studying. Only the group of highly educated young people are more sedentary during school/studying.

Population segments among which sedentary behaviour has increased over the years include women, people aged 65 and over, less well-educated people (aged over 25), people who do paid work for less than 32 hours per week, overweight/obese people and people who do not play sports every week.

Of all Dutch population segments, highly educated young people (aged 12–24) spend the most hours in a sedentary position: 11.5 hours on average per day. The results can provide guidelines for policy to change sedentary behaviour in this target group, among others.