A recent blog post titled ‘Can Too much Sitting be Contributing to Depression’ was published by the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network. It looked at the relationship between sitting and depression and reported that the research seems to support the idea that excessive sitting is positively correlated with an increase in depression. It also highlighted two distinct types of sedentary sitting behaviour: mentally passive (ex. Watching television) and mentally active (ex.reading or driving), and that it is the mentally passive sitting that could have deleterious health effects. You can read the full blog here.
COVID saw us sitting longer – and diabetes rose globally by 16% in 2 years. Time to get moving Christian Brakenridge, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and David Dunstan, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute New figures show global diabetes prevalence has increased by 16% in the past two years, with 537 million adults (aged 20-79) now estimated to be living with the chronic condition. Over this same time period, COVID has stopped us doing some of the things that help prevent and manage diabetes. One particularly concerning example is an increase to sedentary behaviour (sitting down for long periods of time), which was already at dangerous levels pre-COVID. Some estimates indicate the pandemic added an average three hours to our sitting time each day. Now lockdowns have eased in many places, it is vital we get moving again – and in the right way – to change this picture. Reducing sitting time is a good starting place to help people with diabetes, pre-diabetes and other chronic conditions to reach healthier levels of physical activity. A growing global problem Data from the International Diabetes Federation’s 10th Diabetes Atlas, officially launched today, shows about 10% of the world’s population aged 20–79 now live…
The BeUpstanding program is based on over a decade of evidence into what works to help support desk-based workers sit less and move more. The foundation for the program was the Stand Up Victoria study, a randomised controlled trial where the research team delivered the intervention components and ran the evaluation. The initial translation of this intervention into an online program that uses a “train-the-champion” approach to guide workplace champions to deliver and evaluate the program themselves has been previously described, showing that it was effective and acceptable. In the latest paper from the BeUpstanding team we report on Phase 3 of the translation process – our early adopters of the program. What were we evaluating in Phase 3? Phase 3 ran from when we first went “live” with the program on September 1st, 2017 until the start of the national implementation trial in mid June 2019. The purpose of this phase was to test the sign-up process and the new platform that we had developed to be able to deliver and evaluate the program. We also wanted to evaluate the extent to which the program and processes were “fit-for-purpose” for our national implementation trial. To test this, we did…
The BeUpstanding program is about supporting desk-based workers to sit less and move more. However, sitting and moving behaviour at work is influenced by a lot of different things besides individual preferences, including job roles and tasks, the social environment (including whether other people are regularly up and about), policies (such as flexible work hours), and the physical environment (such as access to safe and well-lit stairs). To be able to design effective strategies to encourage desk-based workers to ‘sit less and move more’, there is the need to not only understand what factors influence sitting and activity time at work, but also their availability within workplaces. For example, it is not much use designing an intervention around centralising printers if nearly all workplaces have already done that, or have gone paperless. What did we do? As part of the BeUpstanding program, we ask workplace champions to complete an audit of their workplace. The audit asks about the presence (or not) of a range of factors to support sitting less and moving more. We recently published an article reporting on the audit findings from 291 champions (representing 230 organisations) who had completed the workplace audit. We looked at the prevalence…
The pandemic had certainty hit the world and changed everyone’s habits and routines. To slow down the spread, and prevent worsening of the impacts, the governments of many countries implemented tight restrictions on movement and socialisation. Although these measurements are highly effective and important in allaying the spread of COVID-19, the limitations, which included restrictions to outside activities and social distancing, have resulted in the adoption of unhealthy behaviours in large segments of the population, including increases in sedentary time and decreases in physical activity. During the highest level of lockdown, travel limitations were also imposed. For example, this rule was implemented in the Greater Sydney where movements were restricted to within 5 kilometres from home when COVID-19 cases were at its peak. This restriction likely reduced time spent in the incidental movements, like going to the shops, that are part of normal life. Exacerbating this, studies showed that people also tend to spend more time at home on activities that minimised movements, such as using electronics which further increase excessive screen time. For example, the average sitting time in the US increased by 3 times to 6 hours per day since the declaration of the pandemic. Furthermore, as BeUpstanding’s…
A recent research article published by the American Journal of Physiology in 2021, showed that standing and moving around every 30 minutes for at least 3 minutes, taking at least 15 steps during this time, can reduce the negative health complications of prolonged sitting, such as high blood glucose and cholesterol levels. The findings, which were highlighted in a recent New York Times article, showed that frequently taking small breaks from long periods of sitting time – even by doing fairly low levels of moving – can protect and improve metabolic health. The research began by recruiting 16 volunteers. The target group were obese adults (18-60 years) who were in a sedentary occupation or unemployed, with both men and women included. Participants were fitted with an activity monitor and a blood glucose monitor. They were then monitored for one week to capture their baseline levels of activity and glucose control. After the baseline period, participants were randomly allocated into control groups and intervention groups. Participants in control groups continued with their normal lifestyle. However, participants in the intervention group were prompted to take frequent short breaks from prolonged sitting throughout the day. Every 30 minutes participants in intervention group were…
One strategy that has been shown to result in substantial reductions in workplace sedentary time, particularly when accompanied by behaviour change programs like BeUpstanding, has been the use of sit-stand workstations. These workstations allow a user to shift between a sitting and standing posture while working on their computer. The popularity of sit-stand workstations in Australia has exploded, with a report showing a 400% increase in sales of sit-stand workstations since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with over 90% delivered to home addresses. This phenomenon isn’t just restricted to Australia with a global market research report showing that sales of sit-stand workstations are expected to reach $2.8 billion by 2025. To date, the majority of research on sit-stand workstations has been from the perspective of the user, i.e., the individual employee. However, it is also important to understand their use and implementation from the perspective of the decision maker responsible for their purchase. One of our outstanding BeUpstanding PhD candidates, Haroun Zerguine, has conducted research to address this evidence gap. His findings, which have been published in Applied Ergonomics (here and here), are summarised below. What was done The study included an online survey as well as interviews with…
A new article by two of the BeUpstanding academic team – Professor David Dunstan and Professor Neville Owen – highlights the importance of supporting adults to both move more and sit less for their cardiovascular health – something that the BeUpstanding team strongly endorse! The article, published in Nature Reviews Cardiology, provides a great summary of the effects of sedentary behaviour on health outcomes. As can be seen in the Table from the article, there is now strong evidence that there is a dose-response relationship of sedentary behaviour with increased risk for all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality, as well as incident cardiovascular disease. The article also summarises the potential mechanisms for these relationships, highlighting that it is likely that sedentary time acts across multiple biological systems to regulate blood pressure, vascular function, blood glucose and brain blood flow. Importantly, there is emerging evidence to suggest that regular physical activity interruptions to sitting time, such as through simple resistance activities like going up onto your toes or going for a short walk, may help to attenuate these detrimental processes. A number of key points were highlighted: Both physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease…
One of BeUpstanding’s lead investigators, Associate Professor Genevieve Healy, presented at the recent national Musculoskeletal Disorders Symposium in June. The event was held virtually and hosted by Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, on behalf of the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities in Australia, and featured international and national experts, industry case studies, and online exhibitors with the theme of MSD prevention by design. Genevieve’s presentation titled “Addressing sedentary behaviour: occupational sitting, an emerging workplace health and safety issue” focused on why excessive sedentary time has now been acknowledged as an emergent health and safety issue and potential solutions for supporting workers to sit less and move more. Genevieve also presented some early findings from the BeUpstanding national implementation trial we have currently underway, that are showing reductions in self-reported musculoskeletal discomfort scores in three areas (Lower back; Upper back, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, or hands; and hips, thighs, buttocks, knees, ankles, or feet), with nearly a 15% relative reduction overall. Promising early results! You can now view the presentation as well as some of the other presentations via this link. Happy watching!
It is recommended that we do at least 30 minutes of exercise a day – or 150 minutes a week – to stay healthy. But 30 minutes accounts for just 2% of the day. And many of us spend most of the rest of the time sitting – which can adversely impact on our health. A new study has revealed that 30 minutes of daily exercise is not enough to overcome the health risks of sitting too much, but also revealed that with the right balance of time spent exercising and moving, it may be possible to counteract the negatives of too much sitting. For this research the authors combined data from six different studies from the UK, US and Sweden looking at a total of over 130,000 adults. Each of the studies used a physical activity monitor (like a Fitbit) to measure a person’s movements and sitting time throughout the day. Each study then followed the participants for an average of four to 14 years to track whether any participants died. The researchers found that for those people who spent less than seven hours a day sitting, doing 30 minutes of daily exercise decreased the risk of early death…
