BeUpstanding™ Blog

sedentary behaviour

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The Health Risks of Prolonged Occupational Sitting and the Benefits of Physical Activity

Latest evidence

The 2020 World Health Organisation guidelines on physical activity highlighted the importance of reducing sedentary behaviour due to its negative health effects. However, the specific impact of prolonged sitting at work, particularly in the context of varying levels of physical activity, has not been fully explored. A recent prospective cohort study in Taiwan, published earlier this year in JAMA Network Open sheds light on this issue, focusing on the health outcomes associated with occupational sitting among apparently healthy individuals. The study followed 481,688 participants over an average period of 12.85 years, collecting data on their occupational sitting habits, leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), lifestyle choices, and metabolic health. The findings revealed that individuals who predominantly sat at work had a 16% higher risk of all-cause mortality, and a 34% higher risk of cardiovascular disease mortality compared to those who predominantly did not sit at work. These increased risks persisted even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, education, smoking, drinking, and body mass index. To counteract the negative effects of prolonged sitting, the study suggests that individuals who sit most of the day at work should aim to add 15 to 30 minutes of physical activity per day. This additional…

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How to motivate your team and keep them motivated

Latest evidence

You are the nominated Champion for your work’s BeUpstanding challenge. Congratulations! But, now you are wondering how to keep your team motivated to stick with it. How will your communications help your team feel driven to see out the challenge to the end? Fortunately, there’s more that you could consider in addition to the helpful resources, reminders and shout-outs at morning meetings. We’ve applied a theory that provides an effective way of supporting sustained motivation as a leader, and adapted the approach to best suit your role as a BeUpstanding Champion. Consider this – if you had all the money you needed to survive and be content for the rest of your life, would you still do some form of work? It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say “no”, if your primary reason for working was to earn an income to sustain your living. If you thought “yes”, what would be your reason for wanting to continue working, when the need to earn money or status is no longer a driving factor? Thanks to Self-Determination Theory (or SDT) co-founders, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, we’re able to understand how different types of human motivation drives our behaviour. Ryan and Deci formulated…

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Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep Quality

Latest evidence

High-quality sleep is an important factor in sustaining health and improving well-being. Previous evidence has demonstrated the positive associations between increased physical activity and reduced sedentary behaviour (SB) with sleep quality. In a recent study published in Scientific Reports in January 2023, researchers in Japan aimed to explore the relationship between sedentary behaviour (SB), light-intensity physical activity (LPA), moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and sleep quality in middle-aged adults. The study used an isotemporal substitution approach to examine the relationship between physical activity and sleep quality. This approach involves replacing one type of activity with another while keeping the total amount of time spent active the same. The participants were middle-aged adults who wore accelerometers to objectively measure their daily time spent in sedentary behaviour, light physical activity (LPA), and MVPA. They also completed self-reported questionnaires to assess their rest by sleep and sleep quality. The results of the study showed that each 60-minute unit of sedentary time or LPA replaced with MVPA was associated with improved rest by sleep in women. However, there were no significant associations found between physical activity levels and sleep measures in men across all three models. The study highlights the importance of considering substitutional relationships…

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Can we transfer what works in the office to the home work environment?

Latest evidence

COVID-19 has brought about massive shifts in working practices resulting in many employees now working at home/remote working at least some days of the week. While there have now been a number of studies addressing prolonged sitting at the workplace, how these strategies translate to the home work environment is less well understood.  An article titled ‘What works to reduce sedentary behavior in the office, and could these intervention components transfer to the home working environment?: A rapid review and transferability appraisal’ was recently published in Frontiers in sports and active living to help understand this issue. The aim of the review was to build on existing evidence to identify what works to reduce sedentary behaviour in an office environment, and consider whether these could be transferrable to support employees working at home. The results of a systematic search of databases CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, CINHAL, and SportDiscus from 10 August 2017 to 6 September 2021 were added to the references included in a 2018 Cochrane review of office based sedentary interventions. Informed by the Behavior Change Wheel, the most commonly used intervention functions and behavior change techniques were identified from the extracted data. Finally, a sample of common intervention strategies were…

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Modelling the potential health and economic benefits of reducing population sitting time in Australia

Latest evidence

Strong evidence indicates that excessive time spent sitting (sedentary behaviour) is detrimentally associated with multiple chronic diseases. A paper titled “Modelling the potential health and economic benefits of reducing population sitting time in Australia” has recently been published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity and describes the development of the first Australian sedentary behaviour model that can be used to predict the long term consequences of interventions targeted at reducing sedentary behaviour through reductions in sitting time. The authors report that sedentary behaviour is prevalent among adults in Australia and has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, estimating the potential health benefits and healthcare cost saving associated with reductions in population sitting time, could be useful for the development of public health initiatives. A sedentary behaviour model was developed and incorporated into an existing proportional, multi-state, life table Markov model (ACE-Obesity Policy model). This model simulates the 2019 Australian population (age 18 years and above) and estimates the incidence, prevalence and mortality of five diseases associated with sedentary behaviour (type 2 diabetes, stroke, endometrial, breast and colorectal cancer). According to the model, if all Australian adults sat no more than 4 h per day, this would result in health…

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Economics of Sedentary Behaviour

Latest evidence

It is well established that sedentary behaviour is an established risk factor for several diseases; however, its economic impacts are less understood. Published in Preventative Medicine last week, a paper titled “Economics of sedentary behaviour: A systematic review of cost of illness, cost-effectiveness, and return on investment studies” is the first review that has investigated the broader economic credentials of Sedentary Behaviour. The authors, Nguyen P et al., reviewed the literature on the economic costs associated with excessive sedentary behaviour and the cost-effectiveness of interventions targeting sedentary time. The review identified nine articles. Three reported healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time, and found that healthcare costs associated with excessive sedentary time as reported in cost of illness studies were substantial. However, none explored non-health sector costs. In the six articles which were economic evaluations of interventions targeting sedentary behaviour, they adopted a societal perspective. However, costs included differed depending on the intervention context. The authors concluded that excessive sedentary behaviour is likely associated with excess healthcare costs and of the limited interventions targeting sedentary behaviour reduction that have been economically evaluated, most were likely to be cost-effective. The most promising interventions from a cost-effectiveness perspective were those that included…

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Can Too Much Sitting be Contributing to Depression?

Bite size facts

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.

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Champion Insights – How BeUpstanding has Impacted Workplace Culture

BeUpstanding Stories

The BeUpstanding program was developed to support work teams to address the emergent work health and safety issue of excessive sitting.  Through taking part in the program, it is hoped that the various strategies teams implement to sit less and move more in the workplace lead to sustainable changes in their organisation and create a culture where sitting less and moving more is the norm. In order to evaluate the impact of BeUpstanding, champions taking part in the national trial of BeUpstanding complete a survey through the online toolkit at three timepoints in the trial – prior to launching the program, upon completion of the 8-week program, and 12 months after launching the program. Champions also take part in a phone call with a member of the BeUpstanding team at these same time points and are asked a series of questions about their experience. During their 12-month sustainability phone call with a BeUpstanding team member, champions were asked the following question about their workplace; “To what extent do you feel the workplace culture and norms have changed to support sitting less and moving more?” Here are some of their responses: “We include the BeUpstanding program as part of our induction…

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How does the pandemic ‘encourage’ sedentary behaviour?

Latest evidence

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…

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Free webinar on why and how to reduce sedentary behaviour

Key resources

The International Society for Physical Activity and Health (ISPAH) has paired up with WHO to run a series of webinars based on the release of the WHO Guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. The latest one on the 4th March featured BeUpstanding principal investigator A/Prof Genevieve Healy as part of the line-up, talking about the evidence on how to reduce sedentary behaviour. Check out the video below. You can also catch the other webinars in the series at: https://www.ispah.org/resources/free-webinars/

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