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by STEPHANIE STRAUBEL
Intern News Reporter
New measures are being taken in the ongoing American battle of the bulge.
Office workers have recently been introduced to the treadmill desk, a solution devised by James A. Levine of the non-profit Mayo Clinic.
Levine built the first treadmill desk for his personal use, attaching a hospital tray to his treadmill and simultaneously working and walking for hours at a time.
 The creation of a treadmill desk in fall 2007 combines and facilitates exercise and office work. Photo by Martin Stamat |
Levine’s
idea was bought by ergonomic solution provider Details in fall 2007 and
“Walkstations” are now being sold to major companies for about $4,000
each.
Businesses
see the Walkstation as a way to not only keep workers healthy and
active, but also as an incentive to attract prospective employees.
“I have
no time to work out at all,” Amanda M. Mount, freshman elementary
education major and Belk Library & Information Commons employee
said. “I work 30 hours a week.”
The
treadmill desk has inspired several blogs raving about its benefits and
a social network of adult users whose profiles boast “Office Workers:
working at 100 calories per hour.”
Levine
promises up to 57 pounds of annual weight loss to multitasking workers
who use the desk for an entire eight-hour workday.
“I need the money, but I’d prefer the exercise,” Mount said.
The
Walkstations have replaced conference tables in several businesses
across the country and employees are eager to show up to work with
tennis shoes in hand, claiming the exertion heightens their attention
to work.
Cascades
Café staff member Cindy B. McDaniel said she agrees the innovation is a
positive one for an office setting, but acknowledges it would be a
difficult addition to a bustling food service area like the environment
she works in.
“If I could I would,” McDaniel said. “But we walk a lot here.”
Multitasking engenders this innovation, and although its convenience is irrefutable, many question its efficiency.
“For
each aspect of human performance-perceiving, thinking and acting—people
have specific mental resources whose effective use requires supervision
through executive control,” Joshua Rubinstein, David Meyer and Jeffrey
Evans said in their study published in The Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
In order
to switch from one task to the next, one needs to “goal shift” and then
“rule activate” two complementary unconscious processes that allow us
to gear our minds towards catering to the execution of a new task.
The time
spent shutting off one topic and switching to a new one can add up and
if one is repeatedly alternating between two tasks their time
efficiency may not be sacrificed as much as the quality they commit to
the tasks.
Unfamiliar
tasks take a greater toll on the multitasking mind, and the
introduction of the Walkstation certainly presents an unknown to office
workers.
“[The Walkstation] wouldn’t be that bad,” Laura B. Katz, sophomore biology and secondary education major said.
Katz works between 15 and 17 hours a week in Plemmons Student Union.
“It could get distracting sometimes, but I don’t see how it could cause any major problems,” she said.
Around
335 Walkstations have been sold in the United States and they allow
office workers to burn on average 100 to 140 calories an hour.
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