Sit-Stand Desks

The Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine (FSEM) UK is adopting a culture of wellness in the workplace by installing new sit-stand work desks as well as continuing to encouraging regular breaks and physical activity throughout the working week. Vari-desks are an adjustable platform that sit on top of a work desk and can be easily installed and height adjusted.

Yvonne Gilbert, Executive Manager, at the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine UK comments: “Our desk work regularly involves looking at the medical evidence surrounding the benefits of physical activity and sitting for long periods of time without breaks or moving can increase the risk of poor health. Our new sit-stand desks are useful for encouraging a more active working day, where PC based work takes up the majority of your week.”

Staff at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where the FSEM is based, have already popped into the office to try out the new desks. Faculty staff have now adopted their new working environment by following guidelines for the desks; standing at first for for 20 minutes at a time and building up to the suggested period of 2-4 hours of  total standing time.*

Follow the links below for further information on workplace wellness, exercise and the dangers of sitting for long periods.

*Source Active Working CIC and Public Health England statement http://www.getbritainstanding.org/expert_statement.php

Useful links:

1. Public Health England report considering the business and economic case for employers to invest in staff wellness programmes. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/work-health-and-wellbeing-building-the-case-for-wellness
2. NHS Scotland Healthy Working Lives Centre – http://www.healthyworkinglives.com/
3. Prolonged sitting increases risk of serious illness and death regardless of exercise, study finds http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h306
4. Sitting Ducks – Sedentary Behaviour and its Health Risks: Part One of a Two Part Series http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2015/01/21/sitting-ducks-sedentary-behaviour-and-its-health-risks-part-one-of-a-two-part-series/
5. Experts: Office workers should stand more http://www.clinicalendocrinologynews.com/specialty-focus/diabetes/single-article-page/experts-office-workers-should-stand-more/fa28b7f2ff70417ebf3e58f4d4da6932.html
6. The benefits of exercise in the run-up to surgery are covered in Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s UK-wide education campaign
7. Exercise for life – Physical activity in health and disease. Recommendations from the Sport and Exercise Medicine Committee Working Party of the Royal College of Physicians http://www.fsem.ac.uk/media/62859/exercise-for-life.pdf