New study highlights health and weight impact of desk jobs

New research has provided further evidence of the negative impact that sedentary desk jobs can have on a person's health and physique.

The University of Warwick-led research equipped 111 healthy Glaswegian postal workers with activity monitors for seven days. Of these, 55 were office-based workers, while 56 delivered post, giving them more opportunities to remain active.

It was shown that those with desk jobs had larger waist circumferences, with an average measurement of 97 cm compared to 94 cm for those delivering post, while a single-unit difference in body mass index was also demonstrated.

More concerningly, the office-based staff had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease – 2.2 percent over ten years, compared to 1.6 percent for the delivery workers. Bad LDL cholesterol was also shown to increase with each additional hour of sitting from five hours a day, while good HDL cholesterol fell.

Professor Mike Lean, a contributor from the University of Glasgow's School of Medicine, said: "Our evolution, to become the human species, did not equip us well to spending all day sitting down. We probably adapted to be healthiest spending seven to eight hours every day on our feet."

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