7 ms·

Review of Studies About Standing Desks

47 points by JohnHammersley 11y ago

pluma 11y ago
> In one year-long intervention that included lean, overweight, and obese workers, the 36 total participants lost an average of 3 to 7 pounds. Now, that's a useless statement if I've ever seen one. The arithmetic mean is pretty much meaningless if the group varies that much.
madaxe_again 11y ago
"did lose weight, though they experienced no changes in body composition, such as body mass index" They got shorter from using standing desks? Only way you can lose weight but not change your BMI...
- tempestn 11y ago
  Taken literally, yes, but I'm guessing what it actually means is lost fat. Assuming similar mass was added in muscle, BMI would remain the same. (BMI not being a terribly useful metric...)
  - paulojreis 11y ago
    Actually, BMI _is_ a terribly useful metric (and it's unfortunate bashing, nowadays, is an echo chamber phenomenon in fitness circles around the web). The study this is referring to has a small-ish n (36), so, no big deal here - it seems that they took body composition measurements (among many others) without a significant overhead, they even built a lab within the premises of the corporation they were doing the study in. And they got very rich data with it (although the difference in body fat didn't reach significance, others such as waist circumference did). But imagine that they were doing a different study. Something like a cohort, longitudinal and distributed: studying various corporations which use standing desks during a long, long time (a decade?). This would imply many different people collecting data in different context and different times (and, effectively, bothering even more people). Building labs or ensuring similar equipment across the different sites would be very expensive and laborious - not to mention error-prone! Just imagine the overhead of getting body composition indicators - even something simple as asking people to measure their waist, but during a decade across N sites. In this kind of large study, a seemingly simplistic but nonetheless standardized (and, in a way, normalized) indicator such as BMI is an extremely helpful tool. Imagine you want to do an analysis not by weight, but by by "obesity" ranges, or check if "obesity" status changed: getting body composition is nearly impossible, but using the BMI pre-established ranges (lean, normal, overweight, obese) will actually be feasible (you just need height and weight!). And yes, although a bodybuilder will be considered overweight or obese by BMI, remember this is a study with a large enough n - edge cases will eventually average each other and BMI will hold true for the sample. The BMI will be a cost effective (and feasible) solution to analyse something more than weight changes.
    - tempestn 11y ago
      Yes, that's a good point. My statement was a bit tongue in cheek. BMI can be useful if used appropriately, with its shortcomings in mind. It isn't nearly as useful as other metrics for the sort of individual comparison mentioned by the grandparent comment though.
    - JupiterMoon 11y ago
      In that case BMI gets misused a lot. The bashing comes because whilst it may be useful on a large statistically significant population it is nearly useless at an individual level. One can take two people of identical BMI and one can be actually very fat and the other very slim.
      - paulojreis 11y ago
        Misused, by whom? I trust my physician to know how to interpret the BMI values. I don't trust my insurance company to do the same, but they're eventually the ones with a large n (so to speak) - ethics aside, if they want a cost-effective way to factor obesity in their premium, BMI might be the way to go. They'll overestimate the premium for the bodybuilder, but they'll get right most of the time. I'd expect most misuse to be by the media and random people in the Internet. In both cases, however, you should already be taking everything - not only BMI stuff - with a grain of salt. P.S. Even at an individual level, BMI will hold true for the large majority. Even you're talking in a fitness forum, most people won't have enough muscle mass to affect the index that much.
        heynk 11y ago
        I know a guy who is a hardcore triathlete. At one point a few years ago he was doing really well, sponsored athlete, over 210 pounds with only 7% body fat. He was at a regular check up and the nurse looked at the BMI chart, then looked at him and plainly said 'Maybe you should work out more'. Just my anecdata that BMI is misused even in the medical community.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  - thearn4 11y ago
    I'm not an MD or dietician, but I'm kind of surprised that BMI hasn't been replaced by something as simple as height-to-waist ratio, which seems to me would be a potentially informative measure with higher correlation to body fat percentage than BMI.
    - paulojreis 11y ago
      Difference scientific fields will value different things. A computer scientist might prefer a fundamentally more "valid" metric, but someone who studies something more organic would rather have a less valid but more empirically grounded one. You can't forget that there's really a ton of reported data behind BMI. So much that e.g. in children we know, per age, the percentiles which should be used as cut offs for considering obesity and triggering further analysis/intervention. But this is the individual level! As you certainly know, obesity is largely a public health issue, which makes BMI - which has lots of epidemiological data behind it - even more appropriate. There's really no better way, IMHO (and not only [1]), to track obesity as a public health problem. [1] Hall, D. M. B., & Cole, T. J. (2006). What use is the BMI? Archives of Disease in Childhood, 91(4), 283–286. http://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2005.077339 http://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2005.077339
- paulojreis 11y ago
  Yeah, that was an over-simplification by the fasctodesign author(s). "No changes" doesn't mean quite the same as "no significant changes". "The 18 participants in the intervention group showed a reduction in weight over a 3 month period but did not show any significant changes in body composition" [1]. It's a study with a small n, it's normal to fail to reach significance in some variables. [1] Brittany T. MacEwen, Dany J. MacDonald, Jamie F. Burr, A systematic review of standing and treadmill desks in the workplace, Preventive Medicine, Volume 70, January 2015, Pages 50-58, ISSN 0091-7435, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.11.011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.11.011. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351400454X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743514...)
tempestn 11y ago
Cool, nice to see. I've been wanting to convert my current sit/stand desk [1] to a treadmill setup for a while, but I'd like to work out a way to maintain the ability to relatively easily switch back to seated mode. Still need to think on that a bit. [1] http://www.tempestblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150817_201303.jpg http://www.tempestblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/201508...
imakesnowflakes 11y ago
I have been doing this for about a week. I don't actually have a standing desk though. I just put the 24 inch display and my small mechanical keyboard on top of my tower cabinet (Which is already on a table). This set up places the display at my eye level and the keyboard at just below chest level. So I don't actually have a place support my hands, and I just go 'hands down' after typing something. And typing on the keyboard at a little below chest level feels really great. Because you don't have to bend your wrists up, while typing, as you would need to, if the keyboard was a bit lower (as shown in the pictures in this post). It actually feels great. (I have a chair on stand by though). The biggest advantage I can see is that, it is easy to take a break and move around, when you are already standing.
bsder 11y ago
I see no mention of the fact that lots of people who swore by treadmill desks also started swearing at them after about 6-9 months. The problem is that your head is supposed to move when you are walking. When you are working at a computer, your head has a fixed point that you are trying to make stable. This is simply untenable posture and causes all manner of problems. I wonder if that kind of problem holds for just standing, though.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- k__ 11y ago
  Probably solved after the 4k VR displays arrive. You would look rather ridiculous walking on a treadmill with a keyboard, wearing a Rift or something. But I think this could be the optimal setup.
  - luke_s 11y ago
    Sadly not - I've got eye problems from staring at a screen 8 hours a day. Now I have to use an app which forces me to look out the window every 10 minutes and focus on something at a different distance.
- stevenwei 11y ago
  I've had a treadmill desk for several years now and haven't noticed any issues with this. It's fine to walk when you're just reading or doing light tasks. I do need to sit when doing concentration heavy work though.
sixQuarks 11y ago
look at the pictures of people using laptops with standup desks. Their head is pointed down, that is terrible for ergonomics. Proper standup desks should have a different height for the keyboard and the monitor.
- nabla9 11y ago
  Hanging 3 kg weight with neck muscles all day kills the neck. I made interesting observation in the work few months ago. All tall people (> 1.8 m) tend to use monitors and keyboards every time they have opportunity. Smaller people are more comfortable using laptops in the office. Tall people have to bend their head downwards more and they have to give up terrible ergonomic position first.
  - k__ 11y ago
    Yes, I'm tall and I can confirm this. I try to get the center of my displays at the height of my eyes. But I have a convertible notebook, so I will probably buy a keyboard and use it in "tent-mode" in the future.
sixQuarks 11y ago
look at the pictures of people using laptops with standup desks. Their head is pointed down, that is terrible for ergonomics. Proper standup desks should have a different height for the keyboard and the monitor.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lloyd-christmas 11y ago
I'd be curious about studies on something like programming. Many of these talk about cognitive function and typing ability, but they don't mention the actual tasks being done (that I can find). With all due respect to everyone else, programming is a different beast altogether. I worked in finance at a computer all day, and my requisite attention level for that job was significantly different than when I switched to programming full-time.
- doppelganger27 11y ago
  I would bet that the studies focused on cognitive function and typing ability because they're objectively measurable, and much more repeatable than, say, measuring the significance or difficulty of the tasks.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  I worked on a personal project for about a week or so on a makeshift treadmill desk. I was somewhat more productive, not a magic bullet or anything, but it's definitely something you could get used to and derive advantages from.
partomniscient 11y ago
I wonder how one compensates for the Hawthorne effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
carsongross 11y ago
OT, but this image from the article: http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2015/04/3045217-inline-i-1b-everything-science-knows-right-now-about-active-desks-copy.jpg http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imageca... looks like hell made real on earth. Only thing missing are the demons forcing workers trying to escape back into the pit of anxiety.

pluma 11y ago

> In one year-long intervention that included lean, overweight, and obese workers, the 36 total participants lost an average of 3 to 7 pounds. Now, that's a useless statement if I've ever seen one. The arithmetic mean is pretty much meaningless if the group varies that much.

madaxe_again 11y ago

"did lose weight, though they experienced no changes in body composition, such as body mass index" They got shorter from using standing desks? Only way you can lose weight but not change your BMI...

tempestn 11y ago
Taken literally, yes, but I'm guessing what it actually means is lost fat. Assuming similar mass was added in muscle, BMI would remain the same. (BMI not being a terribly useful metric...)
- paulojreis 11y ago
  Actually, BMI _is_ a terribly useful metric (and it's unfortunate bashing, nowadays, is an echo chamber phenomenon in fitness circles around the web). The study this is referring to has a small-ish n (36), so, no big deal here - it seems that they took body composition measurements (among many others) without a significant overhead, they even built a lab within the premises of the corporation they were doing the study in. And they got very rich data with it (although the difference in body fat didn't reach significance, others such as waist circumference did). But imagine that they were doing a different study. Something like a cohort, longitudinal and distributed: studying various corporations which use standing desks during a long, long time (a decade?). This would imply many different people collecting data in different context and different times (and, effectively, bothering even more people). Building labs or ensuring similar equipment across the different sites would be very expensive and laborious - not to mention error-prone! Just imagine the overhead of getting body composition indicators - even something simple as asking people to measure their waist, but during a decade across N sites. In this kind of large study, a seemingly simplistic but nonetheless standardized (and, in a way, normalized) indicator such as BMI is an extremely helpful tool. Imagine you want to do an analysis not by weight, but by by "obesity" ranges, or check if "obesity" status changed: getting body composition is nearly impossible, but using the BMI pre-established ranges (lean, normal, overweight, obese) will actually be feasible (you just need height and weight!). And yes, although a bodybuilder will be considered overweight or obese by BMI, remember this is a study with a large enough n - edge cases will eventually average each other and BMI will hold true for the sample. The BMI will be a cost effective (and feasible) solution to analyse something more than weight changes.
  - tempestn 11y ago
    Yes, that's a good point. My statement was a bit tongue in cheek. BMI can be useful if used appropriately, with its shortcomings in mind. It isn't nearly as useful as other metrics for the sort of individual comparison mentioned by the grandparent comment though.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    In that case BMI gets misused a lot. The bashing comes because whilst it may be useful on a large statistically significant population it is nearly useless at an individual level. One can take two people of identical BMI and one can be actually very fat and the other very slim.
    - paulojreis 11y ago
      Misused, by whom? I trust my physician to know how to interpret the BMI values. I don't trust my insurance company to do the same, but they're eventually the ones with a large n (so to speak) - ethics aside, if they want a cost-effective way to factor obesity in their premium, BMI might be the way to go. They'll overestimate the premium for the bodybuilder, but they'll get right most of the time. I'd expect most misuse to be by the media and random people in the Internet. In both cases, however, you should already be taking everything - not only BMI stuff - with a grain of salt. P.S. Even at an individual level, BMI will hold true for the large majority. Even you're talking in a fitness forum, most people won't have enough muscle mass to affect the index that much.
      - heynk 11y ago
        I know a guy who is a hardcore triathlete. At one point a few years ago he was doing really well, sponsored athlete, over 210 pounds with only 7% body fat. He was at a regular check up and the nurse looked at the BMI chart, then looked at him and plainly said 'Maybe you should work out more'. Just my anecdata that BMI is misused even in the medical community.
        JoeAltmaier 11y ago
- thearn4 11y ago
  I'm not an MD or dietician, but I'm kind of surprised that BMI hasn't been replaced by something as simple as height-to-waist ratio, which seems to me would be a potentially informative measure with higher correlation to body fat percentage than BMI.
  - paulojreis 11y ago
    Difference scientific fields will value different things. A computer scientist might prefer a fundamentally more "valid" metric, but someone who studies something more organic would rather have a less valid but more empirically grounded one. You can't forget that there's really a ton of reported data behind BMI. So much that e.g. in children we know, per age, the percentiles which should be used as cut offs for considering obesity and triggering further analysis/intervention. But this is the individual level! As you certainly know, obesity is largely a public health issue, which makes BMI - which has lots of epidemiological data behind it - even more appropriate. There's really no better way, IMHO (and not only [1]), to track obesity as a public health problem. [1] Hall, D. M. B., & Cole, T. J. (2006). What use is the BMI? Archives of Disease in Childhood, 91(4), 283–286. http://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2005.077339 http://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2005.077339
paulojreis 11y ago
Yeah, that was an over-simplification by the fasctodesign author(s). "No changes" doesn't mean quite the same as "no significant changes". "The 18 participants in the intervention group showed a reduction in weight over a 3 month period but did not show any significant changes in body composition" [1]. It's a study with a small n, it's normal to fail to reach significance in some variables. [1] Brittany T. MacEwen, Dany J. MacDonald, Jamie F. Burr, A systematic review of standing and treadmill desks in the workplace, Preventive Medicine, Volume 70, January 2015, Pages 50-58, ISSN 0091-7435, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.11.011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2014.11.011. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009174351400454X http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743514...)

tempestn 11y ago

Cool, nice to see. I've been wanting to convert my current sit/stand desk [1] to a treadmill setup for a while, but I'd like to work out a way to maintain the ability to relatively easily switch back to seated mode. Still need to think on that a bit. [1] http://www.tempestblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150817_201303.jpg http://www.tempestblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/201508...

imakesnowflakes 11y ago

I have been doing this for about a week. I don't actually have a standing desk though. I just put the 24 inch display and my small mechanical keyboard on top of my tower cabinet (Which is already on a table). This set up places the display at my eye level and the keyboard at just below chest level. So I don't actually have a place support my hands, and I just go 'hands down' after typing something. And typing on the keyboard at a little below chest level feels really great. Because you don't have to bend your wrists up, while typing, as you would need to, if the keyboard was a bit lower (as shown in the pictures in this post). It actually feels great. (I have a chair on stand by though). The biggest advantage I can see is that, it is easy to take a break and move around, when you are already standing.

bsder 11y ago

I see no mention of the fact that lots of people who swore by treadmill desks also started swearing at them after about 6-9 months. The problem is that your head is supposed to move when you are walking. When you are working at a computer, your head has a fixed point that you are trying to make stable. This is simply untenable posture and causes all manner of problems. I wonder if that kind of problem holds for just standing, though.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
k__ 11y ago
Probably solved after the 4k VR displays arrive. You would look rather ridiculous walking on a treadmill with a keyboard, wearing a Rift or something. But I think this could be the optimal setup.
- luke_s 11y ago
  Sadly not - I've got eye problems from staring at a screen 8 hours a day. Now I have to use an app which forces me to look out the window every 10 minutes and focus on something at a different distance.
stevenwei 11y ago
I've had a treadmill desk for several years now and haven't noticed any issues with this. It's fine to walk when you're just reading or doing light tasks. I do need to sit when doing concentration heavy work though.

sixQuarks 11y ago

look at the pictures of people using laptops with standup desks. Their head is pointed down, that is terrible for ergonomics. Proper standup desks should have a different height for the keyboard and the monitor.

nabla9 11y ago
Hanging 3 kg weight with neck muscles all day kills the neck. I made interesting observation in the work few months ago. All tall people (> 1.8 m) tend to use monitors and keyboards every time they have opportunity. Smaller people are more comfortable using laptops in the office. Tall people have to bend their head downwards more and they have to give up terrible ergonomic position first.
- k__ 11y ago
  Yes, I'm tall and I can confirm this. I try to get the center of my displays at the height of my eyes. But I have a convertible notebook, so I will probably buy a keyboard and use it in "tent-mode" in the future.

sixQuarks 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

lloyd-christmas 11y ago

I'd be curious about studies on something like programming. Many of these talk about cognitive function and typing ability, but they don't mention the actual tasks being done (that I can find). With all due respect to everyone else, programming is a different beast altogether. I worked in finance at a computer all day, and my requisite attention level for that job was significantly different than when I switched to programming full-time.

doppelganger27 11y ago
I would bet that the studies focused on cognitive function and typing ability because they're objectively measurable, and much more repeatable than, say, measuring the significance or difficulty of the tasks.
vinceguidry 11y ago
I worked on a personal project for about a week or so on a makeshift treadmill desk. I was somewhat more productive, not a magic bullet or anything, but it's definitely something you could get used to and derive advantages from.

partomniscient 11y ago

I wonder how one compensates for the Hawthorne effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

carsongross 11y ago

OT, but this image from the article: http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imagecache/inline-large/inline/2015/04/3045217-inline-i-1b-everything-science-knows-right-now-about-active-desks-copy.jpg http://b.fastcompany.net/multisite_files/fastcompany/imageca... looks like hell made real on earth. Only thing missing are the demons forcing workers trying to escape back into the pit of anxiety.