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Fitwel®
Published in Traci Rose Rider, Margaret van Bakergem, Building for Well-Being, 2021
Traci Rose Rider, Margaret van Bakergem
While employees often sit endlessly at their desks, Providing regular occupants access to active workstations can help to relieve a series of physical and mental stresses. Similar to the WELL® Building Standard’s Active Workstations optimization, this strategy recognizes that there has been a shift from manual labor jobs to highly sedentary office-based professions and attempts to combat that lack of regular activity. A number of interventions have been designed to reduce sedentary time throughout the workday by replacing the sitting workstation with active workstations. Active workstations can allow standing, treadmilling, or cycling while working, providing opportunities for both a change in posture and to improve muscle activation during work activities. Strategy requirements vary by building type (e.g., MTBB, ST, CI, or MTWB) but similarly include a minimum of one no-cost active workstation for every two regularly occupied workstations. Projects must also provide no-cost access to a personal active workstation upon request. While there is a wide array of strategies that can impact levels of health in a workplace, the common denominator centers on occupant satisfaction and well-being.
Emotion and the instrumental workspace
Published in Edward Finch, Guillermo Aranda-Mena, Creating Emotionally Intelligent Workspaces, 2019
Edward Finch, Guillermo Aranda-Mena
Many organisations are investing in the sit–stand desk (SSD) in order to address health concerns about people in the office spending too much time in a fixed seated position. During the working day a typical European will spend 9½ hours sat down. Sedentary behaviour can lead to obesity, cardiovascular diseases and Type 2 diabetes, which together represent the leading causes of death and healthcare costs in Western societies (Wilmot et al. 2012). We might think that spending 30 minutes at the gym after work will compensate for our static existence in the office. Think again – research has shown that this approach may not overcome the unhealthy effects that arise from a sedentary lifestyle (Hamilton et al. 2008). Even those that consider themselves fit (e.g. those that cycle to work) may be subject to the risks associated with sitting for long periods.
Human Diversity
Published in Stephen Pheasant, Christine M. Haslegrave, Bodyspace, 2018
Stephen Pheasant, Christine M. Haslegrave
Despite the close links between social class and occupation, occupation can have direct and separate influences on the anthropometric characteristics of a user population in a particular occupation or industry. In some circumstances ‘self-selection’ may occur, with individuals gravitating towards occupations to which their physiques are well suited. The physical content of the occupation itself may also exert a training effect (sometimes referred to as task fitness) — or, perhaps more detrimentally, a de-training effect in the case of sedentary lifestyles. The most extreme examples of training effects are provided by athletes, as discussed by Wilmore (1976). The consequences of sedentary occupations are discussed elsewhere in this book, but the more general consequences of a sedentary lifestyle are a serious current concern in relation to the health of our populations (especially in terms of the increase in obesity). Finally, the physical aspects of work may have detrimental effects on health and functional capacity. Era et al. (1992), for example, found that elderly people who had had a higher occupational status at working age had better physical, sensory, psychomotor and cognitive functions. Savinainen et al. (2004) found similar results when comparing older people who had had a high physical workload during their working life with those who had had a low workload. The only physical capacities that they found to be better in the high workload group were flexibility of the spine and isometric trunk muscle strength.
Effects of active microbreaks on the physical and mental well-being of office workers: A systematic review
Published in Cogent Engineering, 2022
Ahmed Radwan, Luke Barnes, Renee DeResh, Christian Englund, Sara Gribanoff
Recent data suggest that the average individual engages in sedentary behaviors for 8–9 hours per day, with the majority of this sedentary behavior occurring in the workplace (Kar & Hedge, 2021). By sitting more and moving less in the workplace, workers put themselves at a heightened risk for a variety of pathologies that can have lifelong implications on their health. Number of hours spent sitting has been positively correlated with risk for diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and even premature mortality (Buckley et al., 2015). Sedentary workers are also at risk for developing a variety of musculoskeletal disorders, including disorders of the neck, upper limbs, and lower back. These work-related musculoskeletal disorders represent the most common occupational related disorders in the world, with 20–60% of all office workers reportedly suffering (Hoe et al., 2018). In addition to physical pathology, the effects of sedentary behavior have been linked with negative mental outcomes such as depression, lower cognitive functioning, increased risk of dementia, and overall lower quality of life (Izawa & Oka, 2018).
Test-retest reliability of a measure of perceived activity compensation in primary school children and their parents: a mixed methods study
Published in Journal of Sports Sciences, 2022
Brittany A. Swelam, Jo Salmon, Lauren Arundell, Anna Timperio, Abbe L. Moriarty, Nicola D. Ridgers
Physical activity is beneficial for physical and cognitive health and well-being in children (Poitras et al., 2016). In contrast, higher levels of sedentary behaviour in children are associated with poor health outcomes (Carson et al., 2016; Cliff et al., 2016). In 2019, Australia introduced the 24-hour movement guidelines for children and young people (5–17 years; Okely et al., 2019) which highlighted the co-dependence of different movement behaviours and the importance of increasing activity and decreasing sedentary behaviour. However, children persistently engage in low levels of physical activity, with physical activity interventions averaging just four minutes increase in activity (Metcalf et al., 2012), and sedentary behaviour interventions showing little to no evidence of a decrease in sedentary behaviour levels (Altenburg et al., 2016). Consequently, efforts to increase activity and decrease sedentary behaviour have been largely unsuccessful (Schranz et al., 2018).
Accelerometer-measured physical activity and sedentary time are associated with maximal fat oxidation in young adults
Published in European Journal of Sport Science, 2022
Juan Corral-Pérez, Daniel Velázquez-Díaz, Alejandro Perez-Bey, Adrián Montes-de-Oca-García, Jorge R. Fernandez-Santos, Francisco J. Amaro-Gahete, David Jiménez-Pavón, Cristina Casals, Jesús G. Ponce-González
Sedentary behaviour is defined as any activity done while sitting, lying, or reclining while expending no more than 1.5 METs (Saunders et al., 2018). Recent researches have shown that sedentary time is strongly associated with unhealthy metabolic outcomes, such as metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and waist circumference (Cooper et al., 2012; Gennuso, Gangnon, Matthews, Thraen-Borowski, & Colbert, 2013). This could be explained due to the fact that the lack of skeletal muscle contractions induces hyperlipidaemia, increasing the intramuscular triglycerides levels and promoting obesity and unhealthy outcomes such as metabolic syndrome (Ukropcova et al., 2007). In contrast, sedentary breaks, defined as the transition from a sitting or lying position to standing or stepping, has been associated with better metabolic health, greater control of postprandial glucose and insulin levels (Chastin, Egerton, Leask, & Stamatakis, 2015), and higher fat oxidation at rest (Hawari, Al-Shayji, Wilson, & Gill, 2016). Nevertheless, to our best knowledge, only one article (Amaro-Gahete et al., 2020) studied the relationship between physical activity and sedentary behaviour with MFO, although the association with sedentary breaks is still unknown.