Developing a viable cure for office worker obesity

Sitting still at a desk all day - like you're probably doing right now - is making the average office worker fatter and less healthy than we've ever been before. Gym workouts and regular exercise are not the key to breaking out of this cycle - a new study suggests that it's the sitting down that's killing us, and that a simple change to spending 2-3 hours a day gently walking at around 1mph while we work could help obese office workers lose up to 30kg a year. Dr. James Levine devised the walk-at-work treadmill to test the effectiveness of getting office workers off their butts - with fantastic results.

Sometime in the last 50 years, sitting at a desk all day became the norm for the average worker in developed countries. For the first time in human history, a huge percentage of us are sitting completely still for up to 8 hours of each day - as we've "advanced," we've downgraded to a sedentary lifestyle that our bodies are finding it very difficult to cope with.

It is no coincidence that obesity rates have skyrocketed over the same period - with a larger and richer food intake than previous generations, and exceptionally low activity rates through the day, the input/output ratio is higher than it's ever been, and our waistlines and overall health are paying the price.

The gym's not the answer While planned exercise is extremely valuable and has its place, many people find it difficult to prioritise over work, family and social commitments. Furthermore, planned hard exercise doesn't seem to be the biggest factor separating lean individuals from obese ones - studies have shown that obese individuals spend an average of 2 and a half hours more time sitting down per day than lean individuals.

Dr. James Levine from the Mayo Clinic found this to be an intriguing figure - as it suggests that if some measure of light exercise could be conveniently incorporated for a few hours into an office worker's daily routine, the intake to output ratio could be reversed. A couple of hours of light walking a day, not even enough to break a sweat, would reap enormous weight loss and associated health benefits.

Burning calories without exercising Dr. Levine calls it "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" - or NEAT - the burning of calories through the day not associated with strenuous exercise. And he's just finished running a fascinating study to demonstrate how higher levels of NEAT could realistically be incorporated into the average sedentary office lifestyle.

Typically, office workers wanting to drop a few pounds might take the stairs instead of the elevator, or go for a lunchtime jog. However these activities offer only short bursts of exercise - and they tend to leave unfit workers sweaty and uncomfortable in their office clothing, which does nothing to encourage people to do more.

Levine specifically wanted to gently boost the level of activity for several hours a day in the least intrusive way he could - something that wouldn't interrupt a worker's productivity, get them all sweaty, or leave them too out-of-breath to talk on the phone.

The Walk At Work treadmill His solution was the walk-at-work desk, a simple tripod that elevates an office PC workstation and allows it to be placed over a treadmill, where the worker can maintain a very relaxed pace of 1-3mph over the course of a couple of hours. Full and uninterrupted use of the normal working environment, but with the benefit of NEAT.

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