Pedalling Desks Are What We Need To Ward Off Obesity Related Diseases From Sitting Jobs
How are you supposed to be active during the day if your job involves a lot of sitting? While sitting has been labelled as the ‘new smoking’, due to the fact that sitting for prolonged hours at a stretch has been deemed as an ‘unnatural’ activity for human beings, society demands that most of us sit ourselves down and get our work done.
One of most recent studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine stated that sitting for excessively long periods of time is a risk factor for early death. It recommends that you need to be getting up every 30-minutes and move around to cut your risk of early death due to diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart diseases.
The very thought of getting up every 30-minutes while you’re glued to your desk trying to get your work done can be taxing; let alone actually getting up to clock in some activity every 30 minutes or so! While avoiding sitting in a sedentary position and being active are both important facets for your health and well-being, the ideal solution would involve having both these aspects work simultaneously for you.
The solution may lie in getting yourself a pedalling desk to mitigate health risks such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease posed by sedentary workplace and is better than standing desks.
A recent study led by kinesiologists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, showed that insulin levels following a meal were lower when sedentary workers used a pedal desk compared to a standard desk.
"It took much less insulin to keep their blood sugars the same. This means that the body doesn't work so hard to maintain blood glucose and fatty acid levels with use of the pedal desk compared to a standard desk," said Stuart Chipkin, an endocrinologist at the varsity.
"From the metabolic point of view, the pedal desk seems to be helpful and from the work point of view, work tasks were not impaired."
Pedal desks, "could have the potential to achieve public and occupational health goals in sedentary work environments," he said.
Importantly, standing desks and treadmill desks were not feasible to use for whole shifts and may even pose some barriers, such as standing too long.
In contrast, a pedal desk can be used in a seated position at the user's own pace for as little or as much time as the worker chooses, the researchers noted, adding, "we chose to consider integrating physical activity into the workday."
The study that appeared in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise revealed that the using a pedalling desk didn’t affect mouse proficiency, typing speed and accuracy, reading comprehension and concentration/attention.