Health experts and studies in the past discovered that a major downfall of the modern professional life is the fact that many people are sedentary.
The majority of an 8-hour workday is spent sitting, oftentimes in front of a computer. These periods of inactivity were shown to increase the risk of getting diabetes and heart disease, as well as cause premature mortality and weight gain.
In response to these studies and in hopes of counteracting these negative health influences, many people decided to begin standing at work. Standing desks became a trend in workplaces across the nation, and mobile app developers even created various programs that would remind workers to stand up and walk around a few times each hour.
A more recent study, published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health, however, suggests that our previously implemented solutions may not be as helpful as we originally thought.
Researchers put together a group of 74 office-affiliated workers, all of whom were in their mid-20’s and of normal weight, and divided them among four test groups to determine which activities actually burned the most calories at work. Each subject wore a mask that measured how many calories they burned.
One of the test groups sat and typed, then stood once they were finished. The second group sat and typed, then walked around afterward. The third stood, then sat, both without typing. Finally, the fourth group walked before sitting down.
Here are the results: Standing only burns about eight or nine more calories per hour than does sitting. The difference is ultimately not significant enough to account for any positive effect on a person’s weight maintenance.
Walking, however, actually burned three times as many calories as did sitting or standing. By walking around for a total of an hour at work, a person can hope to burn as many as 130 calories more than their sitting or standing coworkers.
So while it might be unrealistic to expect any weight loss to come about from standing at your desk, it’s still worthwhile to keep this arrangement – it’ll at least help you avoid being lazy and excusing yourself to sit for just another couple minutes.
