I have written before about how people seeking healthy lifestyle choices can be whipsawed by advice that can veer wildly, with things that are supposed to be good for you one day becoming demonized the next. This happens with diets as well as physical activity.
The latest reversal deals with ‘standing desks’, desks at which you must stand in order to work. These were meant to combat the supposed ill-effects of being seated all day at our desks, something that office workers are prone to do. I know several people who have them in their offices and even in their homes.
Now new research suggest that standing all day may also be bad for you.
They have been billed as the ultimate antidote to sitting in front of a screen all day at the office. But a study suggests standing desks, which have soared in popularity in recent years, do not compensate for being inactive and may even increase the risk of conditions such as swollen veins and blood clots in the legs.
Research involving more than 80,000 adults in the UK has also discovered that standing does not reduce the risk of diseases such as stroke and heart failure, despite the widely held belief that it does.
The study, led by the University of Sydney, found that being on your feet for more than two hours a day may increase the risk of developing problems such as deep vein thrombosis and varicose veins. The findings were published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Dr Matthew Ahmadi, of the University of Sydney’s faculty of medicine and health, said people who sat or stood for long periods should schedule regular movement throughout the day.
“The key takeaway is that standing for too long will not offset an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and could be risky for some people in terms of circulatory health. We found that standing more does not improve cardiovascular health over the long-term and increases the risk of circulatory issues,” Ahmadi said.
If anything, this study reinforces the common-sense idea of the benefits of seeking variety and practicing moderation in all things. Whether it comes to food or physical activity, mixing it up rather than choosing one and going all in, seems to be the best option.
any cashier at walmart could have told the standing desk evangelists this info. my workplace has desks that can switch between standing and sitting, so that’s not a bad way to go. tho to make the most of this latest advice we’d best do aerobics while we answer phone calls, haha, ugh.
Now that makes me glad I did not waste money on a standing desk when I decided last year to upgrade my “office” here at home.
Since covid I’ve been working mostly from home and I think my back problems have gotten better. On my own I’m much more likely to get up and do some quick exercise now and then. Never felt comfortable doing sit ups in front of my coworkers 😉
My workplace has several stationary bikes that have a small desk attached. We used to have a small exercise room in the basement, but it had to be dismantled because it was not up to fire safety codes. Still, people sometimes book meeting rooms to exercise. I just take the stairs to the basement and back.
karl random @#1,
I have wondered why grocery stores checkout people are not provided with stools that they could sit on. I am sure that it was not out of concern for their health by being too sedentary. It could hardly be a cost issue since stools are so cheap.
So why make them stand during their shift?
Maybe the few extra seconds that it would take for them to get up to bag the groceries was considered an inefficiency.
Mixing it up is exactly right.
I’m sitting at a desk in my home office right now. Behind me is a standing desk. Under that, a small, easily stowed treadmill. I bounce between them all most of the day. Variation in all things, diet too.
Of course, not everyone is afforded the luxury of working from home.
Mano @#4
In the UK cashiers do sit, on chairs with wheels usually. But generally you pack your shopping youself, although you can ask for help if you need it, and if you are still busy unloading the cart when the packing area gets full cashiers do start to pack for you. That is if there is a cashier at those tills, increasingly you are encouraged to use the self-check out tills where one member of staff maybe supervising a dozen tills.
Mano@#4
i assume its because if they are sitting they might be perceived as not working hard enough.
[related]
I remember back in the day one place where I worked offered staff the opportunity to go for this: https://physioworks.com.au/faq/benefits-of-using-a-ball-chair/
I did try one, defs not for me. I fidget a lot.
I had to get a new desk not to long ago, my bargain estate sale desk finally shivered itself to pieces after three decades. Standing desks now have power-assist level adjustment so you can sit sometimes and stand sometimes.
I forget where, but ages ago read something about how standing without walking/moving was bad for people, because it put stress on the joints/tendons/etc., without also giving the muscles/etc. exercise, like walking does.
When I first heard of the standing desk thing, I just rolled my eyes, as none of these people ever had to work a minimum wage job that involved standing for long periods of time. I remember back in the 90s, working fast-food, grocery, and similar minimum wage jobs, there were always “anti-fatigue” mats, fliers for special shoes, and complaints amongst most of the staff of joint and foot problems from standing so long with minimal movement/activity of the lower body. Basically, what karl random@1 said
as to the lack of chairs in US grocery stores, the cruelty is the point. I’m sure anyone who’s worked minimum wage in the U.S. has heard the “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” -- like, employers literally expect minimum wage employees to be running 100% for every minute of their shift. It’s ridiculous…
plus, no chairs means one less thing to buy…
Sitting all day is bad for you. Standing all day is bad for you. Doing pretty much any one thing all day is bad for you. Who would have guessed?
Having said that, I notice that this is yet another study that looks a small number of specific outcomes (in this case cardiovascular issues such as stroke and heart failure) but then gets written up in the popular press as showing that there are no benefits at all.
I have one of those electric desks that allow me to go from sitting to standing as I please, and I’m a big fan -- but I bought it because I was having issues with my lower back, not because I was worried about my cardiovascular health.
@ lochaber, when I worked at fast food decades ago, I got around the “if you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean” by taking a bunch of food trays and sitting down in a booth to wipe them off. I got away with the justification that I needed a table to have room for the clean trays and the trays yet-to-be-cleaned.
That 20 minutes or so I got to sit down made all the difference in a 10-hour shift where I was otherwise standing in one place on a hard tile floor.
Yeah, but standing all day increases your chances of winning a Nobel prize!