Modern times

[tikistitch]

ZOMG! Someone's found a way to make office work even more horrible and degrading!

Making work even more of a slog takes weight off

They built what they called a "vertical workstation" -- a desk fitted over a standard treadmill. They persuaded 15 obese people to work at this treadmill-desk and measured how many calories they burned.

Seriously, tiki would totally do a standing workstation, if it wouldn't drive our officemates totally crazy. But this....

If an overweight office worker used this vertical workstation all day, every day for a year, he or she could lose up to 66 pounds (30 kg), the researchers report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

With the extra pep, they could murder up to three company vice presidents!!

James Levine and Jennifer Miller measured how many calories their 15 volunteers burned using exhaled breath but did not determine if the volunteers lost weight.

'Cause, why bother? It's just such a good idea!

And who wants to go out for walks in icky-poo Nature (it's got germs!!!) when you could simply put on your sharpest office casual wear and walk in place all day in your nice crispy clean, beige cubicle?

Comments

[blythou.livejournal.com]

reminds me of hamsters running in their little spinning wheels...

[twotone]

I would actually totally go for a vertical walking-y workstation set up, although in my case it would be so I can get in my daily exercise while playing World of Warcraft hard at work.

Curious that they didn't actually check for weight loss, unless they weren't feeling up to monitoring the volunteers' eating habits during the testing period?

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

My hunch is they didn't bother measuring weight loss 'cause there wasn't any. Exercising alone (without any change in diet) is a notoriously slow way to lose weight. Figure, you need a 3,500 calorie deficit to lost 1 pound. They estimated the subjects were using up about 100 extra calories an hour. Let's say these guys were on their treadmill 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. AND let's give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't make up for it like most normal Americans by munching more snacky chips. It would take almost a month to lose a single pound. I dunno about you, but I can sometimes jiggle up and down 5 pounds in a week.

It's kind of sad, but if you wanna do this kind of research, you have to keep mentioning weight loss, because that's what people are interested in.

[loli-cat.livejournal.com]

What, the treadmill isn't hooked up to a generator? That way the office drone could power his/her own computer!! ^0^

[tikistitch.livejournal.com]

That's definitely the next step. *gah*