Be a stand-up engineer

Do you spend a lot of time sitting at your desk or lab bench? If so, you could be doing serious damage to your health, regardless of your activity level outside the office or lab. Writes Olivia Judson in the New York Times, “…irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.” And it’s not just your habits at work. She adds, “Among people who sit in front of the television for more than three hours each day, those who exercise are as fat as those who don’t: sitting a lot appears to offset some of the benefits of jogging a lot.”Judson notes that sitting is about the most passive thing you can do-even chewing gum burns more calories. You feel chained to a chair at the office, but she recommends some small steps to increase the number of steps you take each day: take the stairs, not the elevator; visit a colleague down the hall instead of sending e-mail; and, after work, walk to the corner store instead of driving.

Judson notes that in addition to the passivity of sitting, “there’s a ‘physiology of inactivity’…when you spend long periods sitting, your body actually does things that are bad for you.” For example, it cuts down on the production of lipoprotein lipase, a molecule that helps the body processes fats.

Judson cites a study in which men who normally walk about 10,000 steps per day were asked to cut back to about 1,350 steps per day for two weeks. By the end of the two weeks, she says, all of the subjects had become worse at metabolizing sugars and fats, and they had become fatter around the middle.

The situation for engineers with respect to passivity might be getting worse over time. My first engineering job required some desk time, but it was interspersed with frequent trips to the production floor to work with test technicians. Now, the production floor might be 6000 miles away, and you interact with production personnel while sitting at a computer.

If you would like to cut down your chair time, Judson has some suggestions: replace your chair with a therapy ball, or replace your sit-down desk with a stand-up desk. (Ebenezer Scrooge may not have paid very well or offered a favorable holiday schedule, but he did seem to have Bob Cratchit’s health in mind.) For even better results, add a treadmill.

Whatever you do, you should attend to Judson’s concluding warning: “The data are clear: beware your chair.”

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