Free of choice options to reduce sitting: does it work?

Introduction: Increased cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes are important diseases related with age, but also with a sedentary lifestyle. To tackle this problem, strategies to reduce sitting such as sit-stand tables are used. At this moment, there is very low quality of evidence for these ‘stand-alone’ interventions. Therefore, this study aimed at evaluating the impact of a multicomponent intervention program in reduction of sitting time.

Methods: An RCT-study was conducted in the office environment of a pharmaceutical company. All 28 study participants (control + intervention group) received the usual care: presentation of importance of good ergonomics/movement at the office and a check of the ergonomic set-up of the workstation. Then, the experimental group (n=19) could use additional strategies to reduce sitting time: they were free to choose from sit-stand tables, desk bikes and sit-stand chairs for 4 weeks. Also a weekly motivation email was sent. Sitting time was measured using ActivPALTM accelerometers before and after the 4 weeks intervention in both groups. Data were analysed using SPSS.

Results: A significant decrease in sitting time (6.37 % or 32 min/workday) was observed after the multicomponent intervention program of 4 weeks in the experimental group. No significant difference in sitting time was found in the control group. The reduction in sitting time was lower than the subjectively reported decrease in sitting time (i.e. 17,69% or 88 min/workday). 87% of the subjects attributed the reduction in sitting time to the use of sit-stand tables. The feasibility of the desk bikes and sit-stand supports was much less. Half of the subjects revealed that these devices were no important contributors to reduced sitting.

Conclusion: A decreased sitting time was found in the intervention group, subjectively mainly attributed to the use of the sit-stand tables. However, free of choice options to reduce sitting is important to accommodate for different individual factors. Further studies are warranted to evaluate this further.