Reducing sedentary behaviour in the workplace

Sedentary behaviour has emerged as an important public health issue in recent years. Prolonged sedentary behaviour is associated with increased mortality,1 cardiovascular disease,2 type 2 diabetes,2 colorectal cancer,3 and poor mental health outcomes.4 Although lifestyle interventions have been shown to reduce time spent sitting, many studies are low quality and show only modest improvements in sedentary behaviour.5

One promising setting for intervening on sedentary behaviour is the workplace, which often contributes to a large proportion of people’s everyday sitting. A review of interventions to reduce sitting in the workplace suggests that multicomponent interventions such as those combining sit-stand workstations with behavioural change techniques seem to hold most promise.6 High quality studies with long term follow-up are, however, lacking.

In a linked paper, Edwardson and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.k3870) report the findings of a cluster randomised controlled trial showing that a workplace intervention (Stand More AT Work (SMArT Work)) was effective in reducing …