Employees who spend most of their time tied to a desk need to take steps to avoid health problems, according to experts in the emerging “science of sitting down.”
Dr. Tim Church, of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., called inactivity at work “a big player in the obesity epidemic,” and if a recent experiment by the Chattanooga Times Free Press is any indication, a person’s walk of life has a lot to do with that level of activity.
Office jobs, the number of which has soared in the last 30 years, can pin people to desks and create a sedentary pattern for half of a waking day, Dr. Church explained.
“Back in the day exercise was kind of silly because everybody got so much exercise in the workplace,” Dr. Church said. “Our bodies are evolved to be physically active.”
Steve Bordley, CEO of Trek Desk Inc., which sells desks designed so users can walk on a treadmill while doing their work, said his product and others like it are designed based on the “caveman theory.”