Mr. Carr and his team link at-desk pedaling and big payoffs. The sort of small, relatively inexpensive device they provided to participants in their study allows people to move their legs in a pedaling sort of motion while sitting in their desk chair, using their computer and working in their “usual” way – all without hitting their knees on the underside of their work surface. Adding this “pedaler” to a conventional workspace creates an “activity permissive workstation.” When such a setup was provided, study participants used “the activity permissive workstations 50 minutes/work day [on average].
Significant associations were observed between activity permissive workstation adherence and improvements in several cardiometabolic biomarkers (weight, total fat mass, resting heart rate, body fat percentage) and work productivity outcomes (concentration at work, days missed because of health problems).” So, people with movement-promoting devices tended to “pedal” for a little less than an hour a day, and more pedaling was linked to greater cardiometabolic improvements, better concentration at work, and less days away from work due to illness. These researchers believe that the activity permissive workstations were as effective as they were because they were “owned” by a single person and could be used inconspicuously. In the study run by Mr. Carr and his partners, all participants were obese or overweight and data were collected for 16 weeks.
Lucas Carr, Christoph Leonhard, Sharon Tucker, Nathan Fethke, Roberto Benzo, and Fred Gerr.”Total Worker Health Intervention Increases Activity of Sedentary Workers.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, in press.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.