Treadmill Desk

Rebecca DePorte spends a lot of time sitting, whether it’s crunching numbers at her desk, attending meetings or driving to one of the Wilmington Trust branches she oversees in her job as a senior vice president. But she’s not your typical desk jockey, content to pass the day in a seat.

Instead, DePorte looks for ways to inject physical activity into what would otherwise be a fairly sedentary office environment. In addition to exercising before and after work, DePorte has been known to ask colleagues to walk with her when they have something to discuss. She keeps a pair of sneakers at her desk so she can walk to the adjoining Wilmington Trust building rather than make a phone call.

For her, the bursts of movement are just part of her daily attempt to avoid the pitfalls of inactivity.

“You have to make really key choices about what you are going to eat and how you are going to spend your day,” said DePorte, 49. “I’m always thinking about, ‘How am I going to get enough exercise today?’ “

Her outlook is one shared by health and fitness professionals, many of whom are seeing the effects of our society’s increasingly sedentary habits. Inactivity has been linked to health problems like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, with the biggest hurdle being that many of us are simply not moving our bodies enough to burn off the calories we consume.

But now research suggests there may be additional harm in staying in your seat too long. Last month, a study by the American Cancer Society found that people who spent at least a quarter of their day sitting were more likely to die before those who sat for less than three hours. According to the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, women who sat for at least six hours a day had a 37 percent higher rate of death, while men had a 17 percent higher rate of death.

The findings were similar to another study by researchers at the University of South Carolina and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., who looked at the amount of time men spent sitting in the car or in front of the television. They found that men who sat the most had the greatest risk of cardiovascular death.

Most surprising to researchers was how exercise failed to blunt the effects of sitting. In both studies, people who sat for long periods but also exercised still had higher rates of death, although those rates were lower than among those who didn’t have any physical activity. Those results suggest exercise doesn’t outweigh the negative effects of being sedentary.

“Even among those individuals who are very active, you still see an adverse effect,” said Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist in Atlanta and lead author of the American Cancer Society study, which examined the leisure and physical activities of more than 123,000 people over 14 years.

The association between sedentary activities and death remained even after adjusting for a person’s body mass index, a calculation of body fat, suggesting that people with normal body weight also may be adversely affected by sitting.

While most people know too much sitting can be bad for our health, understanding the mechanics of why is something researchers are still studying, Patel said. Most believe there are multiple factors, including two obvious ones — a lack of physical activity and eating too many calories. It’s not a stretch to predict that people who spend most of their day sitting and eating with few opportunities for moving around are more likely to gain weight.

But another likely reason is that prolonged periods of sitting may induce metabolic changes in the body, Patel said. Sitting is among the most passive activities a person can do, and there’s reason to believe that people who remain inactive for long periods may be unintentionally stimulating or suppressing hormones that, in turn, can affect health in a negative way. Though not yet replicated in humans, animal studies have shown that extended periods of sitting result in changes in metabolism and fat processing.

“It’s not that you have to sit for an hour stretch, it’s just the total amount of time in a given day is directly related to changes in triglycerides, fasting glucose, blood pressure,” Patel said. “There are quite a few markers of cardiovascular disease elevated in those who sit.”

In the University of South Carolina study, researchers looked at 7,744 healthy men and the time they spent watching TV and in the car. They found that men who spent more than 23 hours a week sitting during those activities had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less.

When people factor in time for exercise, they assume that activity will carry them through other aspects of their life, said Tatiana Warren, a graduate student and lead author of the study. But they don’t often think about the hours they spend at a desk without even getting up to stretch or walk down the hall.

“I guess the thought process has been if you meet the physical activity requirement, then you’re not sedentary. And it’s not true,” Warren said. “We have to be conscious now of not just getting our 30 minutes of physical activity, but what can we do to decrease our time sitting.”

Nearly every day, physical therapist Steve Rapposelli sees the physical effects of people who spend the work day sitting at a desk only to come home and assume the same position in front of the TV. They come to him with complaints of sore backs, necks and shoulders, problems that Rapposelli tries to undo in part by getting them to sit in more challenging ways rather than just slouching at home or in the office.

“One of the things we advocate is ‘active sitting,’” said Rapposelli, co-owner of Performance Physical Therapy & Fitness. “We advise patients to actually sit forward in their chair so that they are unsupported by the back rest. By doing this, they are forced to begin using their trunk muscles to keep them upright. It is core stability exercising at its most basic form.”

When possible, Rapposelli said, people should try to stand rather than sit because it puts less pressure on the vertebral discs and uses more core muscles. Even when people sit in a biomechanically appropriate position, it usually becomes too uncomfortable to continue after 30 minutes, so make it a point to get up and move around for a few minutes. He also recommends ditching the traditional office chair in favor of a therapy ball — he uses one himself at work — because it forces the sitter to use stomach and back muscles, making a normally sedentary activity more participatory.

It would be easy for Denise Wilson of Pennsville, N.J., to use her home office as an excuse to settle into a sedentary existence. Instead, she jumps at the chance for activity, whether it’s going across the street to clear out the office mailbox, running up and down the stairs inside her house or walking her dog. In addition to these bursts of movement during the work day — she owns a commercial contracting business — she lifts weights twice a week and walks on a treadmill for at least an hour daily.

“If I do sit and watch TV I feel guilty. I know that there is something I can be doing,” said Wilson, 50. “Plus, I can walk on the treadmill while I watch TV.”

For people in a traditional office environment, it can take conscious effort to get away from the desk, said Laura Kraman, an in-home personal trainer based in New Castle County. It may mean handing over a report in person rather than sending it by e-mail or asking for a change in your schedule to accommodate a longer lunch hour for working out.

She acknowledges it can be difficult to change the culture inside an office where spending long hours at a desk are seen as a sign of dedication. But if you can find someone else in the office to support your efforts, the tandem approach may carry some weight with the bosses. If not, look for small opportunities to escape from your desk, such as setting your printer to one that’s more out of the way.

“I know when I used to have a desk job, what I would do is drink a lot of water and go to the bathroom that was farther away from my office,” said Kraman, owner of MobileFitness. “I would power walk down that hallway because it was a chance for me to get up and moving.”

The reality of a desk job hit Katie Grasso hard a couple years ago when she started as communications manager at the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce. Within a year on the job, Grasso, then 23, had gained 20 pounds, weight she attributed to spending more time sitting at a desk.

Worried about the potential long-term effects like diabetes, Grasso began watching what she ate and working out at a gym. Her exercise got another boost when she and some of her co-workers began walking two miles during their lunch hour.

Since then, she’s lost 30 pounds, but the success hasn’t stopped her from looking for more ways to be active. At the bank, she skips the drive-through in favor of going inside. Rather than drop an e-mail to a co-worker, she walks over and talks face-to-face. When she moved into a new home last spring, she chose a place in Wilmington that allowed her to leave her car at home and walk to work. She even does occasional arm exercises at her desk.

“It didn’t seem like any of it was that much, but it really made a difference,” said Grasso, who is getting married in two months.

Being aware of such easy opportunities for movement is especially important to people who spend their days at a desk, Patel said.

Even on busy days, DePorte said she finds the time to stay active, even if it means just walking around the block.

“I think you have to prioritize yourself,” she said. “You have to put time on your calendar for you. It can’t be given up.”

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