The truth behind standing desks

Summary

ARCHIVED CONTENT: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date each article was posted or last reviewed. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. Follow me on Twitter @RobShmerling Are you reading this while standing at your desk? There's a good chance that you are — standing desks are all the rage. These desks allow you to work at your "desk job" while standing rather than sitting in a chair. They can be custom built (for thousands of dollars) or you can convert a regular desk into a standing desk at no cost by elevating your computer — one of my colleagues simply placed his computer on a stack of books. Sales of standing desks have soared in recent years; in many cases their sales have far outpaced those of conventional desks. Personally, I love the idea — rather than sitting all day staring at a computer screen, surely it would be better to be standing (while staring at a computer screen). But, I also love the idea of studying some of the assumptions surrounding standing desks. A common one is this: certainly it takes more effort — and extra calories — to remain upright rather than sit, and over a course of days or weeks those extra calories would add up to something significant. But is it true that a standing desk can help you avoid weight gain or even lose excess weight? That's just what researchers publishing in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health tried to answer. (Yes, there is such a journal.) They fitted 74 healthy people with masks that measured oxygen consumption as a reflection of how many calories they burned while doing computer work, watching TV, standing, or walking on a treadmill. Here's what they found: While sitting, study subjects burned 80 calories/hour — about the same as typing or watching TV While standing, the number of calories burned was o...