Standing Desks in a Grade 4 Classroom over the Full School Year.

Sharon Parry,Leon Straker,Joyln Ee,Joanne A Mcveigh,Beatriz Ir De Oliveira,Angela Jacques

doi:10.3390/ijerph16193590

Abstract

School-aged children are spending increasingly long periods of time engaged in sedentary activities such as sitting. Recent school-based studies have examined the intervention effects of introducing standing desks into the classroom in the short and medium term. The aim of this repeated-measures crossover design study was to assess the sit-stand behaviour, waking sedentary time and physical activity, and musculoskeletal discomfort at the start and the end of a full school year following the provision of standing desks into a Grade 4 classroom. Accelerometry and musculoskeletal discomfort were measured in both standing and traditional desk conditions at the start and at the end of the school year. At both time points, when students used a standing desk, there was an increase in standing time (17–26 min/school day) and a reduction in sitting time (17–40 min/school day). There was no significant difference in sit-stand behaviour during school hours or sedentary time and physical activity during waking hours between the start and the end of the school year. Students were less likely to report discomfort in the neck and shoulders when using a standing desk and this finding was consistent over the full school year. The beneficial effects of using a standing desk were maintained over the full school year, after the novelty of using a standing desk had worn off.

Highlights

In the digital age where interaction with technology is integrated into many aspects of daily living, young people today are likely to be increasingly engaging with digital technology and into the future
23 students participated in the study over the full school year
This study examined the standing and sitting time during school hours of students that were provided with a standing desk for blocks of about four weeks, periodically over a full school year

Summary

Introduction

In the digital age where interaction with technology is integrated into many aspects of daily living, young people today are likely to be increasingly engaging with digital technology and into the future. The use of computers, tablets, and handheld devices has grown in the last 10 years [1] and associated with sedentary behaviours [2,3]. There is emerging evidence that children are spending a high proportion of waking hours in sedentary behaviours [4,5], defined here as waking behaviours of low energy expenditure (metabolic equivalents of ≤1.5) such as sitting [6]. There is a growing body of research that has indicated that prolonged and uninterrupted sedentary time leads to poor health outcomes in adults, Int. J. Public Health 2019, 16, 3590; doi:10.3390/ijerph16193590 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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