May 15, 2007, 1:31 pm
The Prophet of Walking While You Work
Posted by Jacob Goldstein
We are built to walk, says James Levine, and we sit at our peril.

Levine is a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and he envisions
a white-collar world where treadmill-ready stand-up desks are as
common as cubicles. He's got a paper in the current issue of British
Journal of Sports Medicine suggesting that if obese office workers
spent a few hours a day walking while working, they could lose more
than 40 pounds in a year.

The Health Blog got Levine on the phone yesterday to talk about his
grand plan. He said he was walking at his desk at the time, of course,
though we couldn't hear much treadmill noise in the background. He's
pictured at left, wearing a lightweight suit he designed for white-
collar walking. Here are a few highlights from our conversation.

Q: What's the problem with desk jobs?
A: Humans evolved over a million years to walk. We are a bipedal, in-
motion species. This is how we explore. This is how we learn. This is
how we work. This is how we nourish. It's all on foot-it's all through
movement. People ask if I think it's amusing that you've got these
people up on treadmills walking and working. I think it's strange that
people are sitting all day. No wonder you've got people depressed; no
wonder you've got people ill. Their bodies aren't meant to be doing
this. We've been walking for a million years and we're now on our
butts.

Q: What are the results of your latest study, and how do they mesh
with your research plan?
A: We've shown that people with weight problems can use a desk like
this. The next step: Is it really possible to work in an office
environment? The step beyond that is: What are the health impacts of
doing this? If you start taking people who are being treated for
diabetes or hypertension and they lose weight and come off those
medications, you can calculate the health-care cost benefit. Then you
can walk into corporate offices and say, "This program is associated
with weight loss and at least neutral productivity, and people are
happier, and this is kind of cool and it saves you money." As soon as
you have those pieces in place there will be no one who doesn't do
it.

Q: These desks cost about $2,000 each. Is anyone besides you using
them now?
A: Several Fortune 20 companies are involved. One has 20 units, others
are being delivered. We're turning away large companies. The level of
interest is far beyond what it is possible for us to respond to. There
are several thousand people doing this around the country. I get - at
least every day - requests of where can I buy these?

Q: Do you have any financial stake in the sale of these desks?
I have worked with a company called Steelcase to design a desk. But I
earn nothing. They didn't pay me one penny. [The company confirmed
this in an email to the Health Blog.]

Q: How did you get started in this line of research?
A: I used to lie in the bath when I was nine calculating my rate of
heat loss from my body to the bath. After medical school, I did a PhD
devising instrumentation to measure the rate of heat loss. Then I did
the [2005] Science study [measuring daily energy expenditure outside
of exercise]. We found that people with obesity are sitting 2.5 hours
more per day than people who are lean. The day I saw that data I
walked from here to Panera Bread, 45 minutes back and forth. Then I
thought to myself, I wonder if I could walk while working. Within two
hours I had a computer screen on a stand, a keyboard on a table and a
treadmill. As soon as you've answered your first email walking at one
mile an hour, there's no reason you shouldn't answer all of them at
one mile an hour. After that, the rest is detail.