Zeitschrift für Adipositas- und Gewichtsverlusttherapie

Abstrakt

Inactivity Physiology- Standing up for Making Sitting Less Sedentary at Work

Michael Chia and Haresh Suppiah

Emergent research suggests that prolonged sitting throughout the day over long periods of time in adults is significantly associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and some cancer forms. Singaporean youths and adults respectively, are not sufficiently active during schooling and at work. This pervasive exposure to prolonged sitting in youth and adulthood (e.g. more than four hours daily) expose large segments of the population to health risks and increased all-cause mortality. Some researchers describe ‘prolonged sitting’ as the new ‘smoking’ disease, because of it could be a serious threat to optimal physical and metabolic health. Interventions to fragment sitting time involve the use of standing desks or treadmill workstations but these have produced mixed results since prolonged standing could give rise to other health ailments that are associated with too much standing while expensive desk treadmills would be impractical and are beyond the reach for most people. Moreover, it is inconceivable that these could be used in work group discussions. The use of a seat cycle, to sit and cycle at the same time is an innovative approach at intervening where it makes sense, where its use is not intrusive and could be ‘assimilated’ into the work culture. The use of the seat cycle even challenges the notion and definition that prolonged sitting is sedentary. This case study briefly describes the key concepts and ingredients of an on-going pilot 3-month intervention study that examines the feasibility and utility of making sitting less sedentary at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Results emanating from the study would provide empirical data for product innovation and development, strong opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations among product engineers, sensor  scientists, medical practitioners and health-promotion advocates at worksites.