Testing messages to promote stair climbing at work

Localized activity attenuates the combined impact of a high fat meal and prolonged sitting on arterial stiffness: A randomized, controlled cross-over trial

Exposure to acute prolonged sitting and consumption of a high fat (HF) meal have been shown to independently and additively impair central and peripheral cardiovascular function. This study sought to determine whether localized activity, namely leg fidgeting, offers a protective effect to these deleterious effects. Using a randomized crossover design with three trials, 18 healthy males sat uninterrupted for 180 min following the consumption of a low fat (LF, trial 1) or HF meal (trial 2). The third trial consisted of a HF meal but sitting was interrupted with 1 min of leg fidgeting (isolated bilateral plantar flexion) consisting of -250 taps per min every 5 min for the 180 min duration. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), aortic-femoral stiffness gradient (af-SG), superficial femoral blood flow, shear-rate and PWVβ, triglyceride concentrations and lower-limb venous pooling (HHb) were assessed pre and post sitting in all trials. General linear mixed model found that following the uninterrupted HF trial, there was a significant worsening of cfPWV (mean difference (MD) = 0.57 mˑs-1; d = 1.04) and the af-SG (MD = 0.14, d = 0.50), and femoral artery blood flow (MD = 18 mlˑmin-1; d = 0.48) and shear rate (MD = 15 S1; d = 0.67) decreased. However, leg fidgeting was enough to prevent the combined deleterious effects of prolonged sitting following a HF meal. As there were no significant changes in the LF trial, the HF meal maybe the predominant driver when uninterrupted sitting is combined with a HF meal.

Physical activity in the workplace: a cost or a benefit for organizations? A systematic review

Purpose

Most adults do not follow the minimum requirements for physical activity despite the benefits such activity can provide toward improving quality of life. On average, an adult spends 60% of daily hours in the workplace, making it essential to create working environments that are favorable to avoiding harmful effects on the health of workers. Toward this end, the application of physical activity programs in a work context is one of the possible interventions. This study aims to carry out a systematic review of the literature to identify the impact of physical activity programs applied in the workplace, on employee wellness and organizational productivity.

Design/methodology/approach

The search for reports was carried out in two databases, namely, Thomson Reuters Web of Science and Scopus, according to several inclusion and exclusion criteria. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) was applied to ensure the quality of the study. Microsoft Excel 2016 was used to organize the database to support the data analysis.

Findings

The sample comprised 64 reports published in international journals between 1986 and 2019. From these studies, six thematic clusters were formed: Workplace Physical Activity Interventions, Workplace Wellness, Physical Activity and Organizational Performance, Barriers to Developing Physical Activity Programs in the Workplace, Physical Activity and Sedentary Occupations and Workplace Physical Activity Incentives. The analysis of these clusters confirmed that the implementation of physical activity programs in this context could represent beneficial effects for workers and the organizational system by contributing to a reduction in the rates of absenteeism and presenteeism. However, there are still many organizations that do not implement such programs.

Originality/value

The results of this study are essential for managers of organizations to be able to implement physical activity programs in a work context, similarly to the application of a strategy of corporate social responsibility in an intra-organizational environment. This research may also be useful for professionals in the areas of sports and physical exercise, who want to build their business around physical exercise programs applied to a work context.

Desk based prompts to replace workplace sitting with stair climbing; a pilot study of acceptability, effects on behaviour and disease risk factors

Background

Prolonged sitting is associated with increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Occupational sitting accounts for up to 50 h/week for employees. This pilot study assessed the acceptability of stair climbing as an interruption to sitting throughout working hours, and provided preliminary data of the effects on glucose and lipid profiles.

Methods

A quasi-experimental design was conducted involving 16 sedentary office workers (five females and 11 males) for intervention (n = 8) and control groups (n = 8) with mean age of 36.38 (5.58). For the eight-week intervention, a continuous four-floor stair climb and descent was performed eight times/day spread evenly over the working day. A prompt to climb was presented on the participant’s computer eight times/day. Participants in the experimental group recorded daily floors climbed and steps (measured using pedometers) in a weekly log sheet. Blood samples were collected pre and post intervention to test effects on fasting glucose and 2 h plasma glucose, triglycerides, and total (TC), LDL and HDL cholesterol. Experimental participants were interviewed at the end of the study. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare the median changes (pre-post) of the dependent variables.

Results

On average, the experimental group climbed 121 floors/week when prompted. There were significant reductions in fasting blood glucose, TC and LDL, as well as the derived measures of ‘bad’ cholesterol and the TC/HDL ratio in the experimental group. Post-experimental interviews indicated that the interruption to sitting was well tolerated.

Conclusion

Prompted stair climbing activity had impacts on health outcomes and was found acceptable to employees at work.

Trial registration

Ethics for this study was approved by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Ethical Review Committee, University of Birmingham with ethics reference number ERN_15_0491.

Supplementary information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-14393-1.

Workplace Physical Activity Barriers and Facilitators: A Qualitative Study Based on Employees Physical Activity Levels

Introduction: Lack of time, management support, insufficient facilitates, workload balance, and culture are often reported as common barriers to physical activity (PA) participation in the workplace. In comparison, identifying facilitators of PA in the workplace are scarce. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to overcoming the barriers may also be unsuccessful within university settings where multidisciplinary workforce exists due to the heterogeneity nature of job roles. Thus, the aim of this study was to understand the perceived barriers and facilitators of PA of university employees who were classified as active or inactive based on their job roles. Methods: Forty-one employees (female = 17; male = 24) participated in focus groups to discuss their perceived barriers and facilitators to PA in the workplace. Participants were categorised based on their PA levels as active and inactive prior analysing the semi-structured focus groups data via using thematic analysis. Results and Discussion: The results showed that a lack of time was reported by 80% of the participants as a barrier to PA, including 63% inactive and 17% of the active participants. This included 27% administrators’ staff, 23% academics, 19% senior management, and 11% professional service staff. Over 75% participants reported a lack of management support as one of the perceived barriers to their PA engagement in the workplace. Approximately 58% also reported workplace culture as a barrier to PA participation. Open access to a gym on campus was perceived to be the main facilitator to engaging in PA in the future. Similarly, increased management support for engaging in PA and having flexibility during working days were perceived as facilitators for PA engagement and a way to reduced sedentary behaviour in the workplace. Conclusions: These findings contribute to the limited literature in terms of evaluating obstacles and facilitators of university employees to encourage engagement with PA in the workplace. These findings can be applied to form PA, health, and wellbeing-related interventions specifically targeting these identified barriers that are experienced in the workplace and thereby potentially reducing absenteeism and increasing productivity.

Signage Interventions for Stair Climbing at Work: More than 700,000 Reasons for Caution

Increased stair climbing reduces cardiovascular disease risk. While signage interventions for workplace stair climbing offer a low-cost tool to improve population health, inconsistent effects of intervention occur. Pedestrian movement within the built environment has major effects on stair use, independent of any health initiative. This paper used pooled data from UK and Spanish workplaces to test the effects of signage interventions when pedestrian movement was controlled for in analyses. Automated counters measured stair and elevator usage at the ground floor throughout the working day. Signage interventions employed previously successful campaigns. In the UK, minute-by-minute stair/elevator choices measured effects of momentary pedestrian traffic at the choice-point (n = 426,605). In Spain, aggregated pedestrian traffic every 30 min measured effects for ‘busyness’ of the building (n = 293,300). Intervention effects on stair descent (3 of 4 analyses) were more frequent than effects on stair climbing, the behavior with proven health benefits (1 of 4 analyses). Any intervention effects were of small magnitude relative to the influence of pedestrian movement. Failure to control for pedestrian movement compromises any estimate for signage effectiveness. These pooled data provide limited evidence that signage interventions for stair climbing at work will enhance population health.