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BeUpstanding study protocol published

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Many of our work teams who have signed up for BeUpstanding are taking part in a national evaluation of the program. This evaluation is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC) in partnership with our fantastic policy and practice partners. We have now published the protocol of this evaluation, and the free article is available online here. The key questions we are asking in the evaluation is: who is taking part in the program, how are the champions delivering the program, does the program work (and for whom does it not work), and how much does it cost. We are still recruiting for the trial and we are looking for desk teams from across Australia to sign up now. Importantly – you can run BeUpstanding even if your team is working from home, or has a mix of home and office. Indeed, BeUpstanding might be the perfect program to help your team stay connected while also supporting their health and wellbeing.    

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Health impacts of sedentary behaviour interventions: new evidence

Latest evidence

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…

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How to BeUpstanding by Cutting the Commute

Bite size facts

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…

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The Goldilocks Zone for Movement

Latest evidence

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…

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“Sit less—move more and more often”: all physical activity is beneficial for longevity

Latest evidence

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.…

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How Age and Prolonged Sitting Can Effect Spine Stiffness, Postures and Discomfort

Latest evidence

Recent research by Gruevski K and Callaghan J, and published in Ergonomics on 19th April 2019, looked at the effect of age and sex on passive spine stiffness, postures and discomfort in response to seated work. They noted that understanding age-specific postures and pain development patterns during sitting exposures are particularly relevant given the ageing working population in industrialised nations. Participants were in their Late 20s to early 30s or early 60’s were asked to sit continuously for 90 min while typing. Their results showed that older adults had higher passive spine stiffness and sat with less flexion during prolonged sitting. Discomfort was higher among older adults and occurred earlier in the simulation compared to younger participants, indicating that interventions, such as walking breaks may need to be implemented earlier during sitting for aged workers. Click here to read the full article

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Six Strategies For Sitting Less

The Evidence

Six Strategies for Sitting Less Scratching your head on how your team can BeUpstanding? A recent study by Hadgraft and colleagues and published in the journal BMC Public Health, explored office workers attitudes around reducing workplace sitting. They also sought out workers opinions on a variety of strategies aimed at reducing occupational sitting, which were commonly identified from previous workplace interventions, and their perceived barriers to achieving this in the workplace.  A number of strategies were viewed as acceptable and likely to be adopted by workers with some of the strategies addressing multiple influences on sitting and catering to a range of different jobs and preferences.  Why not give some of the strategies a try in your workplace! Make use of standing meeting. Sick of sitting through endless meetings? Look to change it up by changing your posture. A standing meeting can be used for a quick check in with the team, while putting stand and stretch breaks into the agenda can help your team reset and refocus. Why not step it up by having a walking meeting for those one-on-one catch ups! Communicating face-to-face. Whenever there’s a short message to be conveyed to a co-worker, employees can tell the…

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Standing Up To Sedentary Working

Latest evidence

The following article was written by Sophie O’Connell and published in Occupational Health and Wellbeing on the 7th June 2019. The modern world and the constant pursuit of technological growth have almost eliminated the need for movement in our daily lives. While commuting we sit in our cars or on the bus; at work we sit at our computers or in meetings; during our leisure time we sit watching TV, playing computer games or socialising with friends. Because of technology advancements we do not even need to leave the comfort of our own homes to socialise, stay in touch with friends and family, to shop, to work or even be entertained on a screen. This means that, on average, Brits spend around 9.5 hours a day spent sitting. Typically, the amount of time spent sedentary each day increases with age. In working-age adults much of this sitting is done at work. Evidence shows that office-based workers spend around 75% of their working day sitting, with a third of sitting time being done for a prolonged period. Many of us are guilty of spending time sitting for extended periods due to work, travel or various social commitments. But with the growing…

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Direct Healthcare Costs Of Sedentary Behaviour In The UK

News and Events

The following press release originally appeared on the BMJ Newsroom and was published on March 23rd 2019. Spending large amounts of time sitting or lounging around during the day is linked to around 70,000 deaths per year in the UK and the NHS spends in excess of £0.7bn per year treating the health consequences, suggests research from Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. A large proportion of the UK population have sedentary jobs and leisure activities, and official physical activity recommendations regarding sedentary behaviour are vague. Previous studies have shown that spending large parts of the day sitting down increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and death and is a burden on health services. But no estimate of the financial impact that sedentary behaviour has on the NHS has been calculated, so the authors set out to do just that. Figures calculated by other researchers on the impact sedentary behaviour has on the relative risks of five specific health conditions (type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colon cancer, endometrial cancer and lung cancer) and deaths from all causes were combined with figures on the percentage of adults…

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Sitting for More Than 13 Hours a Day May Sabotage the Benefits of Exercise

Latest evidence

The following article, written by Gretchen Reynolds, was originally posted by the New York Times on April 10, 2019. Sitting for most of the day could make us resistant to the usual metabolic benefits of exercise, according to a small but worrying new study. The findings, in the Journal of Applied Physiology, suggest that inactivity may alter our bodies in ways that are not just unhealthy on their own but also blunt the healthfulness of exercise. We know, of course, that physical activity is good for us and being sedentary, for the most part, is not. Regular exercise reduces the risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and many other chronic conditions. Even a single workout can improve our metabolisms, studies show, so that we burn fat more efficiently after meals and keep our blood sugar and insulin levels steady. Inactivity, meanwhile, has almost the opposite physiological effects. People who spend most of their waking hours sitting face heightened risks for many chronic diseases. They often also experience metabolic problems that raise the risk of diabetes and heart disease, including insulin resistance, poor blood sugar control and high levels of triglycerides, the fatty acids from food that linger in the blood…

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