Walk off that weight - use a treadmill while you work!

Researchers in the United States have come up with a method of tackling the obesity epidemic... using a treadmill while you work!

The researchers say obese employees could shed more than 4st 7lb in a year by spending two or three hours a day at a moveable workstation called a "vertical work station".

The vertical work station is made up of a computer, keyboard and a treadmill created within an H-shaped tubular steel frame.

The experts, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota say the work station has four locking, rubber wheels fitted to the frame, which allows it to be moved over a treadmill; one adjustable arm of the desk holds a computer screen while another holds the keyboard and mouse.

There is, according to the designers, room for a flower vase, cup holder, pen holder or paper tray and the work station operates in much the same manner as an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine or a hamster in a cage on an exercise wheel.

They say the contraption could help obese workers lose excess pounds.

The work station was tested on 14 obese women and one man for a study, with the volunteers walking the equivalent of 1mph which burned off 191 calories.

The authors say if this took place two to three hours a day, and other components of energy balance were constant, "a significant weight loss of 20-30kg per year could occur.

The research is published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.