Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
4 <br /> Five Health Benefits of <br /> Standin g Desks <br /> Spending more of your day standing could reduce the risk <br /> of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer <br /> By Joseph Stromberg <br /> SMITHSONIAN.COM <br /> MARCH 26,2014 <br /> There was a time when standing desks were a curiosity—used by eccentrics like <br /> Hemingway, Dickens and Kierkegaard, but seldom seen inside a regular office setting. <br /> That's changed, in large part due to research showing that the cumulative impact of <br /> sitting all day for years is associated with a range of health problems, from obesity to <br /> diabetes to cancer. Because the average office worker spends s hours and 41 <br /> minutes sitting each day at his or her desk, some describe the problem with a pithy new <br /> phrase that's undeniably catchy, if somewhat exaggerated: "Sitting is the new smoking." <br /> Much of this research has been spurred by James Levine, an endocrinologist at the <br /> Mayo Clinic. "The way we live now is to sit all day, occasionally punctuated by a walk <br /> from the parking lot to the office,"he recently said during a phone interview, speaking <br /> as he strolled around his living room. "The default has become to sit. We need the <br /> default to be standing." <br /> All this might sound suspiciously like the latest health fad, and nothing more. But a <br /> growing body of research—conducted both by Levine and other scientists—confirms that <br /> a sedentary lifestyle appears to be detrimental in the long-term. <br /> The solution, they say, isn't to sit for six hours at work and then head to the gym <br /> afterward,because evidence suggests that the negative effects of extended sitting can't <br /> be countered by brief bouts of strenous exercise. The answer is incorporating standing, <br /> pacing and other forms of activity into your normal day—and standing at your desk for <br />