Team Standing
1. More Calories Burned
Advocates of eating while standing most often cite the fact that we burn more calories standing than sitting as the reason we get on our feet at chow time. The calorie difference here is 50 to 60 calories per hour. We spend an average of one hour and eight minutes per weekday and one hour and seventeen minutes on weekends eating and drinking. This hour – give or take – is the total between all meals and snacks in a given day, so per meal we are looking at about 20 minutes tops. This equates to 16 to 20 calories burned standing that would not have been burned had we sat at lunch.
2. Better Digestion
This is a claim made by team standing and there is some truth to it. Gravity does have some relevance to the movement of food through our gut, which is why we feel more nauseous after a huge meal if we lay down. And this is why those who suffer with Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD) try to maintain an upright position for 2–3 hours following a meal. For those who do not have GERD, digestion and absorption of nutrients might occur slightly faster, but there is no evidence to date that there are nutritional, gut-related advantages to eating standing.
Convinced? Let’s see what the sitters have to say