By Diane Stafford
Kansas City Star
There’s a button under Jeff Schwarz’s desk that he can push if someone absolutely has to have a sit-down meeting in his office.
He taps the button, his desktop lowers, and he pulls his chair from its spot in the corner. But it doesn’t happen often.
Usually, the chief operating officer at the Polsinelli law firm in Kansas City spends his work days on his feet, standing at his desk.
“This works for me,” Schwarz said. “I think better standing. I like walking when I talk, so I always use a headset on the phone. It’s not a calorie perspective. It’s a feel-better thing.”
Across American offices, workers like Schwarz are dumping their sit-down desk chairs in favor of standing desks, treadmill desks and big exercise, or stability, balls. Researchers say the small but growing trend is a very good thing.
Regardless of body type, fitness level or overall state of health, it’s hard on human health to sit all day, repeated studies indicate.
A human nutrition professor at Kansas State University recently used data from a long-term health study of Australian men to show a strong correlation between longer daily hours spent sitting and more chronic disease like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.
The more people sat, the greater their health risks, according to Richard Rosenkranz’s study.
Another study found a link between colon cancer and long periods of sitting.
The link is relevant to more than just couch potatoes. Desk-bound office workers, truck drivers and others who sit for many of their waking hours need to move around more, experts say.
Treadmill desks generally run no faster than two miles an hour, a gentle pace for most people. For fit people, it’s not much of an aerobic activity. They simply see walking as better than just standing and standing better than sitting.
A report published earlier this year in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that death was more likely to occur - for any reason - among the population group that sat the most on a daily basis. It concluded that “prolonged sitting is a risk factor for all-cause mortality.”
Study authors urged public attention, noting: “The potential public health gains are substantial, because in the United States, less than half the adult population meets the physical activity recommendations. . Shorter sitting times and sufficient physical activity are independently protective against all-cause mortality, not just for healthy individuals, but also for those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, overweight, or obesity.”
PRICING THE OPTIONS
Standing desks can vary from a $100 at the lowest end to $3,000 or more.
Treadmill desks with integrated desktops often run between $1,000 and $4,500.
Exercise, or stability, balls big enough to sit on can range from $15 to $50.
BURNING CALORIES
Results vary by sex, weight, time spent and even who’s doing the estimating. Here’s one example for a 150-pound man. In an hour, he can burn:
66 to 126 calories sitting
84 to 156 calories standing
240 to 468 calories walking
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