Does This Chair Make Me Look Fat?
I really want to jump up and down with joy over this book. After all, it validates my feelings regarding sitting and walking. I have a couple hang-ups with it, though. For one, Levine resorts to too much name calling of those who challenged his research. He’s also a bit too quixotic about the benefits of getting up, as though it will solve all our health problems. As someone who has spent a lot time standing for hours “on the line” in restaurants and the fabrication industry, I can attest that standing takes its toll on our bodies as well. He does address this via the addition of incorporating treadmills into standing work stations. The results were even better than anticipated and seem to be the crucial factor in making the standing work station a healthy success. His pie-in-the-sky approach to writing about this topic makes the book come across as one of those horrendous nutrition books that invariably end up as nothing more than a sales tool for the author’s products. The difference is that Levine’s not selling anything. Also, Levine conducted all his own research complete with creating complex monitoring technologies to help confirm or refute his hypothesis. This sets Levine’s proposition to Get Up! apart from the bulk of most health and nutrition books on the market.