Researcher wants workers to get moving

James Levine keeps a 1.6kph pace on his treadmill while checking his e-mail on May 26 in Rochester, Minnesota. The obesity researcher and his team at the Mayo Clinic have developed workstations that combine a computer, desk and treadmill into one unit. PHOTO: AP

Sitting at their desks is about the last thing workers would do in Dr. James Levine's office of the future.

Instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, they'd stand. But instead of standing still, they'd walk on a treadmill. And instead of meeting around a conference table, they'd talk business while walking laps on a track.

That's exactly how Levine, an obesity researcher at the Mayo Clinic, and several of his colleagues have been working for the past five weeks or so.

"I hate going to the gym, which may be partly why I'm so interested in this," he said, keeping up a 1.6kph pace on his treadmill while checking e-mail and fielding questions from a reporter.

That speed is slow enough to avoid breaking a sweat but fast enough to burn an extra 100 calories per hour, or 1,000 a day, given his average 10-hour workdays, Levine said. And it helps the 41-year-old endocrinologist keep his 1.7m frame at 71kg.

"We're talking more than 50 pounds [23kg] of weight loss a year, if I were to keep my diet the same," he said.

Levine is a leading researcher of NEAT -- short for "non-exercise activity thermogenesis" -- the calories people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking or even fidgeting.

A recently published study he led showed that thin people are on their feet an average of 152 more minutes a day than couch potatoes. Levine was brainstorming ways to address that two-hour NEAT deficit a few months ago when he had the idea for the "ultimate office makeover."

"The response has to be appropriate for the magnitude of the problem," he said. "And so we really thought, `Is there a completely different way of working?'"

Within four weeks, his team developed an alternative to the traditional cubicle -- workstations that combine a computer, desk and treadmill into one unit. It was a refinement of a desk Levine created for himself about six months ago.

He and his team also put a carpeted track around the perimeter of their new 450m2 space. They made walls out of magnetic marker boards so they can stand up while developing project ideas.

And while they were at it, they used black tape to mark a hockey net on the wall behind Levine's treadmill so they can fire lightweight plastic pucks at the goal while talking to him.

"It's great fun and it creates a whole positivity," he said during an interview while touring the walking track. "Partly because it's so new, but partly because it's nice to be moving."