Dr Ana Goode and A/Prof Genevieve Healy – the lead investigators on BeUpstanding – featured on the latest episode of the Physical Activity Researcher podcast – a Finnish initiative. They discuss the evidence that underpins BeUpstanding, the impact of COVID-19 on the program, and some simple strategies workplaces can do right away to start sitting less and moving more. Enjoy!
During the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the Australian government had implemented social isolation in an effort to flatten the curve. Many office-based employees were encouraged to work from home in order to minimize the risk of individual’s exposure to COVID-19 through face to face contact. While working from home is reasonably practicable with the current available technology, this is often associated with a shift in workplace culture. Critical to maintaining a successful workplace culture is ensuring that there is knowledge sharing among employees. What is a knowledge-sharing culture? A knowledge-sharing culture is a set of understandings that focus on disseminating existing knowledge among team members and bringing new knowledge from the external environment. It is a set of unwritten guidelines that promotes sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights that are critical for accomplishing team missions. The key elements in knowledge sharing are not only the hardware and software, but also the ability and willingness of team members to actively participate in the knowledge sharing process. Why it is important: Shared understanding is a collective way of ensuring organisation relevant knowledge, and can influence the ability of teams to cooperate and perform well. The internet enables knowledge exchange in ways such as online group…
One of the questions that we are frequently asked is about the health impacts of supporting adults to stand up, sit less and move more. Our team has just published a systematic review and meta-analysis examining this question in relation to indicators of heart and metabolic health in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. The group of lead authors have written a blog article for the Sedentary Behaviour Research Network, which we have reprinted below. Sedentary behaviour interventions in real-world conditions: what are the health benefits? In recent years, interventions to reduce sedentary behaviour in various settings, including the workplace, have become quite prevalent, in recognition of the potential risks of sedentary behaviour to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Systematic reviews evaluating their success have concluded that they do reduce sedentary behaviour, to varying degrees, but so far have yet to determine the extent to which these ‘real-world’ interventions provide the health parameters such as have been reported for acute laboratory interventions. Accordingly, we conducted an extensive systematic review with meta-analyses of interventions targeting sedentary behaviour in free-living conditions for ≥7 days, alone or combined with physical activity. We specifically focused on their effectiveness for adults on biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk, particularly those related to body anthropometry, blood…
The 40-hour work week, a staple of modern office employment, is seldom questioned. In an article for the Canadian publication The Globe and Mail, author Cynthia McQueen asks us, in the age of the videoconferencing and interconnectedness though the internet of things why do we commute at all? The cost of a rigid 9-5 day is measured financially. The author cites a University of Guelph study that found a personal financial boon of between 8,800-23900 $CAD/year saved by eschewing the daily commute. Commuting, as the author points out also costs us time. While BeUpstanding Champions focus on harnessing the increased productivity of movement in the office, the time commuting by car to our places of work remains intractably sedentary. Should the saved commuting time of a flexible workplace be put towards movement the author points out, research shows a potential reduction in sick days by a stunning 27%. The Conference Board of Canada estimated that in 2012 alone workplace absences cost 16.6 billion CAD. In light of the mounting evidence it is no wonder that the majority of Canadian workplaces now offer some form of flexible work contract. With the mounting burden of evidence available to employers it isn’t hard…
It takes no large leap of the imagination to see that the human body was not shaped for a life in an office chair, car, or couch. Our ancestors were habitual movers constantly engaging in mild to moderate exercise. That is all well and good you may say, but as westerners with lives dominated by sedentary behaviour exercise must be supplemented back into our lives. A recent meta-analysis on movement lays out guidelines for a “Goldilocks” zone of exercise for maximal health benefits. This approach bestows maximal benefit with as little as 50 minutes per week (equivalent to running just 5-6 miles). The study emphasised diminishing returns from daily high aerobic exercise in favour of more frequent low to moderate exercise such as walking or yoga. The study references of cohort of daily endurance athletes over the age of 45 who were measured to have an increased risk for cardiovascular events as compared to those with a more moderate activity profile. Key Take Aways: Sitting should be limited to 30 minutes at a time punctuated by a “brisk” 5 minute walk Use a sit-standing desk when possible to alternate postures regularly There is no upper limit for mild to moderate…
A recent article from the BBC contained a shocking statistic that the average American spends “90% of their time indoors.” Though only a survey of the United States, it’s not hard to imagine that across the globe westerners are similarly confined to our homes or places of work. But why should this matter? The author Phillipa Fogarty cites decades of research summing up how time spent outdoors has beneficial impacts on our blood pressure and mental wellbeing while also making us happier and more engaged at work. All we need to do is spend time walking or moving in nature. But before you pack your bags and head for the hills, there is evidence that the same benefits can be gained from just five minutes. The article goes on to say that when compared to indoor “relaxation” training or having a view of the outdoors, the benefits of time outdoors are greatest with short daily walks. So spend a few minutes in a local park on your way to work, as a group as part of a BeUpstanding team, or on your lunch break and bring the benefits of the great outdoors into your own backyard. This article was written…
By Anna Rasmussen On the 4th October it was Diabetes Australia Walk to Work Day. Walking has become an integral part of my daily routine. I spend between two and ten hours each week walking to and from destinations including university or the hospital where I study, the weekend markets, or the shops. The World Health Organisation has acknowledged active transport as a way to improve global environmental and health outcomes. My motivations are primarily to benefit my physical and mental health, but walking has other benefits such as being non-polluting, posing little danger to others, saving money, and, perhaps mostly importantly, I enjoy it. I am, however, one of the minority in Australia that uses walking as their main form of transit. The 2016 Census found that 69% Australian commuters travelled to work by car, and another 5% as car passengers, while 9% used public transport, 1% cycled, 4% walked, and 4% used multiple methods. This is largely consistent with rates from 2011, with a 0.5% rise in driving a car and a 0.7% increase in train use, while cycling and walking declined 0.1% and 0.3% respectively. Furthermore, infrastructure and culture is becoming increasingly car-centric. This is not to…
BeUpstanding wants to help make workplaces everywhere more dynamic, active, and healthy. Built on a foundation of over ten years of research signalling the benefits of sitting less and moving more in the workplace, the BeUpstanding program was designed to change the way we work and think about our health for the better. But if we know that an “upstanding” workplace culture is a healthier workplace culture, how do we get the word out? And, maybe more importantly, how do we make it stick? Large scale behaviour change, like behavioural public health interventions, are understandably very difficult to implement—but here’s the gist. Firstly, we need to consider who we can help the most. Even though it would be great to help everyone affected, finding target populations of those particularly “at-risk” helps interventions target resources where there can be maximum benefit. Target populations are found during the research stage of program development, long before the implementation of an intervention. Our VicHealth review in 2012 helped to identify desk workers as a key target population. Obviously, the dangers of spending most of your day sitting affect everyone, but the BeUpstanding champion toolkit particularly targets workplaces and organisations. This is where sedentary behaviour…
This article is re-posted from a Sedentary Behaviour Research Network blog post on 3rd July 2019. Recently, research into the topic of excessive sitting, or “sedentary behaviour”, has been making headlines. The risk for chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, that comes with high levels of sitting is becoming more evident (1). Office workers represent a population that spend a significant amount of time in sedentary pursuits as a consequence of their occupation (2). As more research is being published on the topic, many workplaces are seeking non-sedentary alternatives and solutions to the traditional office environment to keep their employees as healthy and productive as possible. One such solution has been the implementation of activity-permissive workstations. Activity-permissive, or alternative, workstations replace a worker’s traditional desk and are broadly categorized into either standing desks or dynamic workstations. Standing desks allow for a worker to stand while performing a task (e.g., typing, clerical work), and can be installed as additions to an existing workstation, or as height-adjustable replacement units (see Figure 1). Dynamic workstations are designed to allow for activity or movement while working, and include a variety of alternative workstations, such as: treadmill desks, cycling desks, and dynamic sitting desks…
This article was originally published in the BMJ Opinion on 21st August 2019. New research shows that any level of movement decreases risk of premature death, so get moving say Ulf Ekelund and Thomas Yates It is well established that physical activity of a moderate or vigorous intensity (such as brisk walking) is good for your health. More recently, it has also been shown that people in contemporary societies are spending the majority of their day sitting, and that this prolonged sitting is also linked to an increased risk for many chronic diseases and premature death. Current physical activity recommendations, including those recently updated for the US, suggest that at least 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity is needed to keep healthy and that prolonged sitting should be avoided. However, how much sitting is too much? This is not specified and is widely debated. In addition, are levels of physical activity below those recommended still beneficial for health and does light intensity physical activity still count? Answering these questions have huge relevance for health promotion. We performed a study to address these questions. Our results suggest strong associations between total physical activity and the risk of dying.…
