Tag Archives: desk-job

It’s not exactly news that there’s an obesity epidemic in the United States. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 35.7% of adults in the U.S. were obese between 2009 and 2010. Mark Huffman, an assistant professor of preventative medicine and cardiology at Northwestern University, projects that this percentage will rise to about 43% in 2020.

There are many factors that contribute to an unhealthy weight, but the bottom line is that overweight and obese people consume more calories than they use to perform their daily activities. For most adults, these daily activities are performed at work and compose the majority of their waking hours. In a recent study conducted at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, scientists found that the decrease in physical activity in the workplace over the past 50 years is a significant contributor to the obesity epidemic. So for office workers like myself, who sit at a desk for most of the day, losing excess weight or even maintaining a healthy weight is an exceptional challenge.