According to a new University of Iowa study, employees with desks that force them to stand at regular intervals stood 60 minutes more per work day than co-workers with regular desks. Lucas Carr, an assistant professor who worked on the study, says sitting eight hours a day puts workers at risk for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and diabetes – and becomes more of an issue with each passing year.
Carr says doctors now recommend workers take a break from sitting at their desks to get their blood flowing at least once an hour. He adds re-configuring work spaces could play a big role in fighting the obesity epidemic in the U-S. The study found employees with sit-stand desks burned up to 87 more calories a day – and walked an additional six minutes at work – than their sitting counterparts. Carr notes the study focused on workers who had been using sit-stand desks for an average of one-point-eight years. He says, unlike an exercise bike that ends up collecting dust in the garage, workers continued using the new desks even after they had lost their novelty. Carr says if you can’t convince your boss to buy everyone a newfangled desk, there still are ways you can short circuit the negative impacts of sitting all day.
Sedentary jobs have risen 83 percent since 1960 and now account for 43 percent of all jobs in the U-S. He says on average office workers sit more than 80 percent of the work day.