Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Date of Award

January 2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Nutrition and Food Science

First Advisor

K-L. CATHERINE JEN

Abstract

Increased sedentary behavior, just like reduced physical activity, has been shown to increase the risk of obesity and chronic diseases. This is mostly due to increased time spent sitting at the office desk. There is limited research studying how to decrease such risk in office workers (OW). This study was to investigate a portable device "Desk Jockey" (DJ) on increasing NEAT and reducing sedentary behavior in a simulated office environment. Participants whose daily work requiring long sitting hours were recruited (mean sitting hours/day: 8.6 ± 3 hr, mean age: 25 ± 7 yr, 54% male, 15% obese). Metabolic rates (METs), energy expenditure (EE) and heart rates (HRs) were collected during five sessions, including one sedentary, with different paddling frequencies and resistances. Each session includes 10min rest, 20min paddling and 20min recovery. The results showed that paddling frequency is more important in METs than resistance (p<0.01). With the increase of BMI, EE increased significantly (r=0.77, p<0.05) regardless of different frequencies or resistances. METs increased significantly during paddling in each session (0.90, 0.93, 1.26, 1.48, p <0.01) compared to the sedentary session, while the METs were still very low (2.5 ± 0.6). Moreover, the METs and HRs during the first 10min recovery period were still significantly higher than those at resting state (p<0.05). Therefore, DJ can be used by OWs to increase METs and EE not only during paddling, but also in 10min after cessation of paddling. Thus this device may be adapted for OWs to increase NEAT.

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