Promote Physical Health/Improve Health Outcomes

Multiple recent studies report that sitting too long at work can be dangerous; new research by Smith and his team indicates that too much standing at work can also be harmful.  Workplace options that encourage people to sit, stand, move, and change position are advantageous.  Data collected over 12 years for 7320 employed Canadians 35 years old or older, who were free of heart disease when the study began, were examined.  The researchers determined that “Occupations involving predominantly standing were associated with an approximately two-fold risk of heart disease compared to occupations

A research team lead by Elliston confirms that when we see others eating/snacking, we are more likely to eat/snack ourselves.  Since many members of society are trying to get/stay slim, the findings from Elliston’s group complicates the development of spaces such as open plan homes and at-work break/dining areas.  Casual interactions can lead to social bonds among employees, for example, and centrally located break areas that are visually accessible to large groups of people are common.  That visibility may undermine employee health and wellbeing since people are more likely to eat/snack wh

Newly published research supports studies of relationships between urban green spaces and public health.  Van den Bosch and colleagues report that “We defined the indicator of green space accessibility as a proportion of an urban population living within a certain distance from a green space boundary. We developed a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based method and tested it in three case studies in Malmö, Sweden; Kaunas, Lithuania; and Utrecht, The Netherlands. . . .

An article published in Environmental Science and Technology reports that exposure to dust can affect how much someone weighs.  The study’s findings indicate that easy dust removal/low dust accumulation environments (as well as curtailing the use of certain chemicals) may help keep our BMIs in healthy zones.  A press release from the American Chemical Society indicates that “Poor diet and a lack of physical activity are major contributors to the world’s obesity epidemic, but researchers have also identified common environmental pollutants that could play a role.