According to a Mayo Clinic obesity researcher, if he had his way sitting at their desks is about the last thing workers would do in his office of the future.
In Dr. James Levine's set-up instead of being sedentary in front of their computers, workers would stand, and instead of standing still, they would walk on a treadmill. Rather than meet around a conference table, they would talk business while walking laps on a track.
What is more this not a case of yet another silly scientific notion, Levine, and several of his colleagues have been working for the past five weeks in just such a fashion.
Levine, says he hates going to the gym, which is probably why he is so interested in this idea, He manages to keep up a 1 mph. pace on his treadmill while checking e-mail and answering questions.
That speed, says Levine is slow enough to avoid breaking a sweat but fast enough to burn an extra 100 calories per hour, or 1,000 a day, given his average 10-hour workdays, and it helps the 41-year-old endocrinologist keep his 5-foot-8 1/2-inch frame at 158 pounds.
He says by this method he could anticipate a weight loss of 50 pounds a year, if he were to maintain his present diet.
Levine is a leading researcher of NEAT, short for "non-exercise activity thermogenesis", the calories people burn during everyday activities such as standing, walking or even fidgeting.
In a recently published study he showed that thin people are on their feet an average of 152 more minutes a day than couch potatoes, and was brainstorming ways to address that 2 1/2-hour NEAT deficit a few months ago when he had the idea for the "ultimate office makeover.
He maintains that the response has to be appropriate for the magnitude of the problem, and so they had to find a completely different way of working.
His team quickly developed an alternative to the traditional cubicle - workstations that combine a computer, desk and treadmill into one unit. This was a refinement of a desk Levine created for himself about six months ago.
Around the perimeter of their new 5,000-square-foot space, he and his team put a carpeted track, and made walls out of magnetic marker boards so they could stand up while developing project ideas.