Saturday, June 18, 2005
"Working" out
A researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, has come up with an ingenious office set-up to help people lose weight at work. The unit is part treadmill, part desk, part computer terminal. Office workers would walk on this treadmill while they talk on the phone or work on the computer. The speed is 1 mile per hour, slow enough that you wouldn't be breaking a sweat, but fast enough to burn 100 calories per hour, equivalent to 50 lbs of weight loss a year, other things being equal.
That's the ultimate in forced labor, and walking not just to work, but also at work. The workstation is relatively cheap, about $1000 or half the average cost of a work cubicle. It will be available commercially whenever the Mayo people get off their lazy butts and license the design to office furniture manufacturers.
The inventor is Dr. James Levine who does anti-obesity research at Mayo. He said that the idea came to him because he hates going to the gym. He runs the NEAT laboratory where they study "Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis," or the energy people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking or just fidgeting. Earlier this year they discovered that obese people sit on average 150 minutes more and therefore exert 350 fewer calories each day than lean people. This was determined by having volunteers wear special underpants that monitor body postures and movements every half-second for 10 days straight. The report did not state whether men showed more "movement" than women when they got together to compare data for research.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 6:37 AM
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