It has been almost 10 years since smoking was banned in public places in the UK and it seems a lifetime ago that little groups would regularly disappear from the office for breaks throughout the day for their nicotine fix in the cold.
Although the health implications of smoking are well-documented, the drastic and deadly effects on our health and wellbeing of not taking a break at all, are not so well publicised. The xx survey published by Westfield Health in xx [Title and date to come] of 2,000 British employees, found concerning results at best.
Worryingly, almost 60% of British workers spend most of their working day sitting down and over half (51%) do not get up from their desk at all, apart from toilet breaks. In addition, 55% walk for less than 20 minutes in total on an average day with the worst culprits being those who work in financial services, where 76% admit to only getting up from their desk for less than one hour a day.
There is a great deal of evidence that prolonged sitting increases the risk of obesity but also causes several serious illnesses like cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. It seems it really could be true: sitting is the new smoking.
Whether an employee’s place of work is in a car, at a shop till or in a more traditional office, one common theme is that it involves sitting down for too long each day and studies show that our sedentary culture is taking a major toll on employee health.
And it seems that the humble lunch break, often the only real break in the day many of us get, is itself becoming extinct. According to the aforementioned research, 62% of employees are too busy to take a lunch break, 55% go ‘al desko’, not moving a muscle and eating lunch at their desk and 16% do not eat lunch at all.
The World Health Organisation has identified physical inactivity as the fourth biggest killer on the planet, ahead of obesity. And this is nothing new; a study of bus drivers and conductors carried out by Transport for London in the 1950s, the London transport workers study: Coronary heart disease and physical activity of work, provides stark evidence of the dangers of spending too much time sitting down. It found that drivers, who spend more of their time sitting, were one-and-a-half times as likely to develop heart disease as conductors, who stood more often.
Having ‘walking meetings’ and standing at a desk are both ways to help alleviate the health implications of a sedentary workplace lifestyle, Winston Churchill was a fan of standing whilst working at his desk, and even Victoria Beckham has posted a picture on Instagram of her working at a treadmill desk in incredibly high heels.
Dr. James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and inventor of the treadmill desk, has studied the adverse effects of increasingly sedentary lifestyles for years. He has summed up his findings in two sentence: “Sitting kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.”
As well as the physical benefits, there are also less tangible rewards. Many people notice their mood improves and enjoy a general sense of wellbeing. Our research revealed that 40% of employees feel less stressed, more motivated and have a clearer head after having a walk and getting some fresh air for at least part of the day.
Byline to come
