Switching From Sitting To Standing At Your Desk 312
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Chris Bowlby reports at BBC that medical research has been building up for a while now, suggesting constant sitting is harming our health — potentially causing cardiovascular problems or vulnerability to diabetes. Advocates of sit-stand desks say more standing would benefit not only health, but also workers' energy and creativity. Some big organizations and companies are beginning to look seriously at reducing 'prolonged sitting' among office workers. 'It's becoming more well known that long periods of sedentary behavior has an adverse effect on health,' says GE engineer Jonathan McGregor, 'so we're looking at bringing in standing desks.' The whole concept of sitting as the norm in workplaces is a recent innovation, points out Jeremy Myerson, professor of design at the Royal College of Art. 'If you look at the late 19th Century,' he says, Victorian clerks could stand at their desks and 'moved around a lot more'. 'It's possible to look back at the industrial office of the past 100 years or so as some kind of weird aberration in a 1,000-year continuum of work where we've always moved around.' What changed things in the 20th Century was 'Taylorism' — time and motion studies applied to office work. 'It's much easier to supervise and control people when they're sitting down,' says Myerson. What might finally change things is if the evidence becomes overwhelming, the health costs rise, and stopping employees from sitting too much becomes part of an employer's legal duty of care. 'If what we are creating are environments where people are not going to be terribly healthy and are suffering from diseases like cardiovascular disease and diabetes,' says Prof Alexi Marmot, a specialist on workplace design, 'it's highly unlikely the organization benefits in any way.'"
I'm not going to stand for this (Score:5, Funny)
Important detail (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Weak (Score:5, Funny)
If our bodies are intelligently designed, it would be by Microsoft.
Not Okay. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm not going to stand for this (Score:5, Funny)
As we put them on one guy said "What's the difference? These are just regular old shoes," but it turned out they were actually orthopedic shoes, and so he said "Well then, I stand corrected."
Re:Hmm, not really. (Score:4, Funny)
In a discussion about ID/creation, how could you not?
Re:Weak (Score:2, Funny)
While we're at it, let's put just a bit more distance between the defecating and fornicating areas.
Re:Not sure how standing up would solve anything.. (Score:4, Funny)
No, some parallel programming :)
Re:Hmm, not really. (Score:0, Funny)
'Cuz the Dreamcast was way better, DUH!
Re:Walking yes, standing no. (Score:5, Funny)
We have an employee with a treadmill at his desk. He walks and types. Of course his emails usually read something like, "Hewmy Jammmmes, I gto taht TSp reprt dne!".
Its a new form of crypto...with different levels, depending on the level of difficulty the treadmill is set on:
HILL128 - Hilly Level 1
MNT512 - Mountains Level 5
DED1028 - Death Race Level 10
Re:Weak (Score:2, Funny)
I'll settle for root access to the universe and a few minutes alone with a terminal.