Canadian Safety Reporter

4 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 CSR | October 2017 | News a tremendous amount of pres- sure to the back muscles and spi- nal discs." He adds, "Additionally, sitting in a slouched position can overstretch the spinal ligaments and strain the spinal discs." There are also less obvious complications. A 2015 study by the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found the amount of time a per- son sits during the day is associ- ated with a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and death — regardless of whether or not the individuals were get- ting regular exercise. David Alter, co-author of the study and a senior scientist with the Toronto Rehabilitation Insti- tute points out many studies on the subject have yielded similar results. "The risks of prolonged sitting or prolonged sedentary behaviour are fairly consistent for all-cause mortality, for heart attacks, cancer and diabetes," says Alter. "They range in mag- nitude depending on the study. In some studies it may be as much as a two-fold higher risk, and in other studies it may be 15 per cent more. The magnitude of that risk is still being refined." Given the typical eight-hour workday, even conservative find- ings suggest most office-based workers would be at risk. "If we look at a waking-hour day of 16 hours or so the risks really begin to rise after about six hours a day of sitting and they accelerate af- ter nine to 12, or more," says Dr. Alter. "All studies seem to agree that when people are sitting for tremendously long periods of time — upwards of nine hours — the risks seem to be substantive." Risks reduced by exercise? The 2015 UHN study also found that exercise, while still critical for general health, doesn't ap- pear to offset the risks of sitting. "What it looks to be now, even more crystalized, is that the risks of prolonged sedentary behav- iour seem to be completely inde- pendent of exercise," says Alter. "They may be targeting different aspects of our health and our bodies." A 2016 study by Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Los Angeles and the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute in Ottawa that fol- lowed more than 17,000 Cana- dians over 12 years, backed up those findings. The more time participants spent sitting, the greater their risk of death from heart disease, regardless of how much they exercised, their age, sex, smoking status or alcohol consumption. What happens when we sit? Dr. James Levine, co-director of Obesity Solutions at the Mayo Clinic and Arizona State Uni- versity and inventor of the tread- mill desk, is the author of Get Up!: Why Your Chair is Killing You. In his book, Levine notes, "Put simply, the danger in pro- longed sitting is that it stalls the metabolic machinery. The body has an exquisitely designed sys- tem for trafficking fuels such as carbohydrates and fats. Serious consequences result when the muscular engine sits on idle." Inactivity, says Levine, im- pedes the body's ability to me- tabolize fat and sugar and el- evates triglycerides, potentially raising the risk for cardiovascu- lar disease. He also notes that re- search demonstrates sitting for long periods suppresses lipase, an enzyme that helps metabolize fat and is produced only when leg muscles flex. Decreased levels of lipase are associated with heart disease and other ill- nesses. Levine notes that the metabolism of hormones such as estrogen and testosterone are disrupted, as well. Standing up to sitting To combat excessive sitting time, some employers have intro- duced sit-to-stand desk options for their employees. EY Canada, for example, has installed vari- able-height desks at 60 per cent of the workstations in its new Toronto tower. Globally, says Jeannine Pereira, EY Canada's Talent Leader, the desks are part of a company-wide transition to more flexible workspaces, em- powering people to change their work environment as they want. Sit-to-stand options have been popular at EY's offices across the country, says Pereira. The desks, though, are just one element of a bigger-picture plan. "The concept encourages move- ment," says Pereira, and that, according to Alter, might be the best aspect of sit-to-stand desks. "What I like about the idea of the standing desk is that it does change the culture of the work- place and gets people thinking about health," says Alter. "I think the key is in how we replace sed- entary activity. We don't know whether, for example, light activ- ity is sufficient. We don't know, if we can get people to stand in- stead of sit, is that better for their health or do they actually need to take steps and move in some way, shape or form?" Standing for prolonged peri- ods can have potential risks, too, Alter points out, including back and knee pain for some. It can have more serious impli- cations, as well: A 2017 study by the Institute for Work & Health and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto found a higher risk of heart dis- ease among those who mainly stood on the job, compared to those who mainly sat. Peter Smith, lead researcher on the project and a senior sci- entist with the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto noted a combination of sitting, standing and moving on the job was likely to have the greatest benefits for heart health. Walk and talk In response to headline news about the dangers of sitting, business publications including Wired, Harvard Business Review and Entrepreneur, began investi- gating the benefits of walk-and- talk meetings. Swapping sitting time for steps might have benefits that go beyond employee health as well. A 2015 study conducted by Harvard Business Review found those who participated in walking meetings were 5.25 per cent more likely to report being creative at their jobs than those who did not. Additionally, the responses suggested that walk- ing meetings support cognitive engagement on the job — walk- ing meeting participants were 8.5 per cent more likely to report high levels of engagement. "I think walk-and-talk meet- ings and engaging the workplace through health in some way is great," says Alter. "Standing work meetings or moving work meetings or finding other ways to improve mobility of move- ment during work is innovative, it's cool, but most importantly I think it gets people thinking about health," says Alter. "Walk-and-talk meetings may not be feasible for every work- place, but there may be other things an organization can do that will have similar effects," says Alter. "If you must have tra- ditional sitting meets, then have waking breaks or other episodes where people are encouraged to track their sitting times and get up every 30 minutes. In general, make the environment such that it's more conducive or attractive to take stairs, to walk from place to place rather than taking eleva- tors or sitting." He adds, "There's a lot a workplace can do to pro- mote that culture." Pereira points out that EY, for example, tries to work walking and moving into many aspects of work life. "To promote move- ment in our new office, we cre- ated shared collaboration spaces throughout the tower," says Pereira, including virtual collab- oration rooms for working with colleagues in other locations, private rooms, and nooks for brainstorming and teamwork. "Our people move from one space to another, depending on their needs that day." She adds, "We also made sure to offer dif- ferent amenities on each floor, encouraging our people to move around and explore the tower." Finding the right mix "Ultimately, reducing our sit- ting time is going to necessitate a combination of factors," says Alter. "To sit less we need to tar- get how much sitting we're doing at one time and get up and move around. We still need to exercise and that message needs to be made loud and clear in every kind of opportunity." He adds, "I think a healthier workplace is a hap- pier workplace, and there's a lot of evidence to support the idea that promoting exercise and health can translate into a more engaged and productive workplace." The dangers of sitting < pg. 1 Movement is the key to better health

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