Treadmill desks might encourage some increased physical activity in sedentary office workers but are not effective as a weight loss tool, according to John M. Schuna Jr., Ph.D., and his associates.
The investigators randomized overweight/obese office workers in a private workplace into two groups: a shared treadmill intervention group and a usual working condition control group.
The workers in the treadmill intervention group increased their daily number of steps by just more than 1,600, compared with the control group. In addition, those in the intervention group participated in light physical activity an average of 1.6 minutes per hour more than did those in the control group and decreased sedentary time by 3.6 minutes per hour. No correlation, however, was found between the intervention group and meaningful weight loss during the 3-month study.
The intervention group shared treadmill desks, representing a limit to the study as schedules often conflicted, but it appears that the slight benefit of treadmill desks is probably not worth the cost of individual, or even shared, treadmills, Dr. Schuna and his associates concluded.
Find the full study in the American Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (doi:10.1097/JOM.0000000000000336).