‘Keeping active during work’: Researchers from Japan reveal the secrets!

Adequate physical activity is the key for staying healthy and maintaining mental and physical well-being. Office workers, who spend long hours sitting at their desks, find it difficult to stay active. In Japan, researchers have shed light on how office workers can stay active during the working day. Researchers from the University of Tsukuba examined how office workers at an insurance company in Tokyo managed to stay physically active in a recent article published in the ‘International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health’.

The study consisted of two sets of focus group interviews, with office workers and managers, respectively. According to one of the study’s authors, Yoshio Nakata, the negative health effects of a sedentary lifestyle are becoming increasingly serious in Japan. People who spend more than 70 percent of their working hours sitting suffer from conditions such as diabetes. Office workers spend more than 70 percent of their working hours sitting.

Interviews were conducted to examine how office workers viewed the importance of physical activity and how they saw the workplace environment regarding exercise. Participants were also asked for suggestions on ways to increase physical activity levels. Associate Professor Nakata noted that workers’ perceptions of physical activity are influenced by factors relating to their own personalities, their socio-cultural environments, and their physical environments. Personality and biological health are factors specific to each individual. Organizational factors include company policies to promote physical activity and a healthy work-life balance.

Researchers examined solutions in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation. Research has shown that office workers’ capabilities can be increased by evidence-based health education. Changing the physical environment can allow for physical activity, such as issuing standing desks or installing shower rooms. Incentive programs can be used to motivate employees by rewarding them for increasing indicators of physical activity, such as their daily step count.

Despite their effectiveness, these programs can be expensive. Lower-cost alternatives include posters to promote physical activity and messages from executives encouraging employees to get active. In view of the positively correlated relationship between worker health and worker productivity, further study of the strategies the researchers identified for promoting physical activity among office workers is warranted.