囧研究：站立办公有益健康？

据一项新的研究，站立办公其实并不会降低办公死亡的风险，除非你在办公时是有肢体活动的。

A new study says that standing up at your desk doesn’t actually decrease your risk of death-by-office, unless you’re physically active otherwise.

经几项研究后得出结论：我们整天坐着工作属于慢性自杀，埃克塞特大学和伦敦大学学院的研究人员对此结论另有看法。

After several studies asserted that sitting at work all day is slowly killing us, researchers at the University of Exeter and University College London took another look at the claims.

研究人员对5132人的健康资料做了16年的追踪研究。参与者报告了他们在四种不同的情况下坐着的时间：工作时间、看电视时间、休闲时间和不看电视的其他休闲时间。研究人员还对他们每天的散步时间和体育活动做了跟踪研究。

Researchers tracked 16 years’ worth of health data from 5,132 people. Participants reported their total time sitting and how long they sat during four different situations: at work, watching television, leisure time and non-television leisure time. Researchers also tracked time spent walking daily and on physical activity.

在控制了包括饮食和健康状况等许多因素后，研究人员发现这些参与者的整体死亡率并没有受到久坐时间或久坐方式的影响。而且研究人员还警告大家说，不能因为过于强调站立而取代了增加身体运动量。

After controlling for a number of factors, including diet and general health, researchers found the overall mortality risk for these participants wasn’t influenced by how long they sat or by the kind of sitting. And the researchers cautioned that too much emphasis on not sitting shouldn’t take the place of promoting physical activity.

这项发表在《国际流行病学期刊》上的研究报告很有意思的是，研究人员并不只关注工作日的久坐现象，而且还在陆续发现越来越多各种久坐的数据和身体活动量情况。

What’s particularly interesting about the study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, is that researchers didn’t just focus on sitting during the workday, but factored in all kinds of sitting-specific data as well as rates of physical activity.

他们的结论是，“久坐与全因死亡率风险无关。”基本上，有很多影响因素不仅仅是工作时的久坐不动，你的身体活动量是最大的健康指示器。

Their conclusion was that “sitting time was not associated with all-cause mortality risk.” Basically, more elements are in play than just whether you’re sitting down at work, and your levels of physical activity are the greatest health indicator.

那么，这都说明了什么呢？看来站着工作的行为已经成为一种趋势，尤其是对于在科技类办公室的人而言，如果你不锻炼的话，对健康是起不到帮助作用的。如果你不去健身房运动的话，你不妨还是坐下来办公吧。不过，这对跑步机办公桌的制造商来说是个好消息。

So what does this all mean? It appears that the act of working while standing up—which has become a trendy thing to do, especially in tech offices—doesn’t help your health, if you’re not actually exercising otherwise. If you never make it to the gym, you might as well just sit down. This is good news for the makers of treadmill desks, however.

我工作过的上一个办公室就是站立式办公的桌子，为所有上班族都安装可以站立式办公桌。站立式办公桌也分为跑步机办公桌和自行车办公桌。而选择站立的方式一定要好，这样能变换一下单调枯燥工作的状态，本研究表明这种方法不是万灵药。

The last office where I worked jumped on the standing desk trend hard, installing desks that could be raised for all workers. They also had a treadmill desk, and a bike desk. While the option to stand is certainly nice as a change in the middle of a monotonous workday, this research suggests it’s not the cure-all that adherents would like to claim.

这项研究报告的作者埃克塞特大学的梅尔文希尔斯顿在一份声明中说，“我们的研究推翻了当前对久坐的健康风险的担忧，问题在于缺乏运动影响健康而不是坐着的时间影响健康，坐着或站着其中任何一种固定不动的姿势，其能量消耗都较低可能都会有害健康。”

“Our study overturns current thinking on the health risks of sitting and indicates that the problem lies in the absence of movement rather than the time spent sitting itself,” study author Melvyn Hillsdon of the University of Exeter said in a statement. “Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing.”

这里得出的一个重要结论就是：公司真的想对坐在办公室工作的员工们进行健康投资的话，公司应该选择像免费运动类和健身类的活动来补偿员工们。公司应该鼓励员工们出去走动，而不只是站在的电脑前埋头工作。也许这样才是每位坚持站着工作的员工不再使用高桌子的唯一途径。

The takeaway here is companies that truly want to assist worker health should invest money in options like free exercise classes and gym reimbursements. They should encourage employees to go outside and actually walk around, not simply stand up at their computers. And maybe it means that everyone who insists that standing up is the only way to work can climb down off their high desk.