The nature of office work, which is essentially sedentary, may be a contributing cause of obesity.
Scientists at the University of Montreal's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Carl-Etienne Juneau and his colleagues conducted a study of office workers' health, and concluded that office-workers have become less active over the last three decades and this decreased activity may partly explain the rise in obesity. Their findings, published in the early online edition of Preventive Medicine, may have health implications for the millions of people toiling behind their desks.
This study was funded by the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the University of Montreal Public Health Research Institute, the University of Montreal, and the Quebec Inter-University Centre for Social Statistics.
Juneau reports that "people eat better and exercise more today than they did in the 1970's, yet obesity rates continue to rise." He argues that the nature of professional life, much of which is spent sitting at a computer is linked to this seemingly contradictory phenomenon.
Juneau and his colleagues used several Statistics Canada databases on the health of Canadians that included 17,000 to 132,000 respondents. He concluded that the lack of physical activity during office hours could explain the fact that obesity has increased 10 percent between 1978 and 2004.
Juneau suggests that to combat the rise in obesity it would be best to integrate sport, work and transportation. For example, he says that it may be more effective to walk at break time and taking the stairs could have great benefits over always using the elevator.
Juneau also believes exercise needs to be a group rather than individual activity. "Exercise can't just be an individual thing anymore," he says. "We must focus on groups. For instance, there are now tax credits for parents who register their child in a recognized physical education course. A similar program could be developed in the workplace for employees."
Being overweight and obese have been identified my medical experts as one of the main causes for many illnesses and diseases, which in turn have a significant impact on healthcare costs. Lifestyle causes are the most readily identifiable reason for both conditions, so employers would be wise to institute programs that aim at physical fitness, rather than spend their dollars allocated to remedial healthcare plans.
