It’s clear by now that sedentary behavior isn’t the healthiest thing in the world. Research out today, however, points to the added harms that can come from staying glued to a chair or the couch for long stretches of time. Scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and others examined wearable data from residents in the UK. People who spent prolonged periods being sedentary were more likely to later develop and die from cancer than people who interrupted their sedentary behaviors with bouts of physical activity, they found. The researchers argue that regularly breaking up your couch time, even with light movement, can meaningfully improve your health. “Our findings suggest that the health effects of sedentary behavior may depend not only on total sedentary time, but also on whether that time is accumulated in prolonged bouts or interrupted by activity,” they wrote in their paper, published Thursday in PLOS Medicine. The couch potato effect Studies have consistently shown that the more time we spend being sedentary, the greater our risk of various health issues, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. And health-related guidelines often emphasize cutting down on our total hours being sedentary.