Sitting is a dangerous — and expensive — activity according to recent findings, which show more than one in 10 deaths in the UK are linked to prolonged sedentary behaviour.

Spending large amounts of time sitting or lounging around is linked to over 69,000 deaths a year in the UK, according to the analysis by researchers from Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University.

They used figures on sedentary behaviour taken from the Health Survey for England 2012, which reported that 30% of adults spend at least six hours a day sedentary on weekdays.

This increased to 37% of adults on weekends, the study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reveals.