The Walkstation - For Loosing Weight At Work
Last Updated on Saturday, 06 March 2010 21:21 Written by Alison Manning Sunday, 22 February 2009 03:02
Here's a novel way to help employees loose weight in the office. Its called the walkstation. By replacing the office chair with a slow moving treadmill, workers will naturally burn more calories. The work station is elevated so you can work away while taking a stroll. The idea is not to work up a sweat but just to keep you slowly moving so you can still use the computer, read email, have meetings, and make phone calls.
Researchers have found that compared to sitting and working, working while walking can burn an extra 100 to 130 calories an hour. And that's at just 1 mile an hour.
The machine was created by Dr. James Levine, a Mayo Clinic researcher. He says that people are built to walk. He says we were evolved to be moving and its not making much sense to go to work and be crouched in a seat all day. In fact he says he often spends his entire working day walking at 1 mile an hour.
The walkstation has been around since 2007 and is distributed by the company Steelcase. It costs about $4,000, so employers frequently place Walkstations in common areas or conference rooms, where employees can take turns enjoying the benefits.
Because the Walkstations are often shared, employees need laptops or to have their user accounts configured as roaming profiles so they can share one PC. The same applies to the telephone. Analogue phones usually can't be moved without re-patching them, but if IP phones are in use, the employee can login to any IP phone in the office.
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