Exercise as it relates to Disease/Strategies to increase physical activity in white collar workers

What is the background to this research?
Providing health promotion initiatives in a workplace can help staff access services and help whereas, if it wasn’t provided they may have not have had access to such services. Although, results can be mixed, there are benefits to employers to having fit and healthy staff such as improved performance, less money spent on sickness and less absences. Lack of physical activity is becoming an increasing problem. It is important that strategies are put in place to increase this physical activity. Though physical activity programs have been put in place in many workplaces, they are said to have failed. One of these failings is that the staff who participate are already active individuals. Though these strategies can be supported because they do help to encourage staff who are inactive to become more active within their day.

Where is the research from?
The “Ten Grand Steps” research comes from the Department of Human Services in South Australia that undertook a health promotion initiative. This involved the clerical staff in this department which was approximately 3500 men and women, 80% were female and 20% were male. The majority of the participants were from city and suburban departments, and 15% were from rural departments.

What kind of research was this?
The research used was very practical, with the use of questionnaires, surveys and the use of diaries to collect data. It was also mainly quantitative data as much of the research involved numbers and statistics.

What did the research involve?
The research involved included a 6 week program, 4 weeks of intervention and 2 weeks to organise and group data. Participants were given questionnaires on their physical activity to assess their level of physical activity before starting the program, they were then required to wear pedometers for four weeks and after each day asked to record the amount of steps they had taken in a diary. In the first week, participants were asked to not alter their usual amount of walking to get an indication of the amount of activity they were initially doing and then asked to increase their walking amount after this week. After the four weeks were finished all data was analysed and further assistance was given to those participants that wanted to continue with their walking.

What were the basic results?
Questionnaires revealed that 58.5% of participants were either not active or not very active and 41.5% of participants were already active or very active. After participating in the “Ten Grand Steps” program, participants recorded a 10% increase in the amount of steps taken per day in week four compared to the amount of steps recorded in week one of the program, this was an increase from an average of 8501 steps taken to 9374. The results also showed that participants who started with a lower daily average of steps increased their activity the most, this increase was by 53%, whereas participants who were already getting over 10 thousands steps a day only increased their average amount of steps by 1%. Participants from rural areas also took less steps per day compared to the metropolitan areas. Males were also shown to be more active than females, and the 18-29 age group was the most active throughout the intervention.

How did the researchers interpret the results?
Results were interpreted from diaries and questionnaires taken from the participants. The physical activity questionnaires were then broken down by the researchers into four categories, very active, active, not very active and not active at all. These were then put into percentages. They also divided up the demographics of the participants, including the areas they were from, metro or suburban, male or female, and their age range. After collecting data from diaries the results were collated into differing weeks, week one and four were then compared to one another to determine the changes in the amount walking achieved.

What conclusions should be taken away from this research?
Initiating a program such as “Ten Grand Steps” helps to increase the amount of physical activity that white collar workers achieve. It also helps to increase the amount of awareness within this population as it makes them aware of the amount of activity they aren’t doing and the amount they should actually be doing. Encouraging workers to achieve 10 thousands steps a day helps to improve health and wellbeing within the company. Researchers were also surprised with the amount of change that had occurred as it was previously thought that for an intervention to work, it would take more than 4 weeks, however this was not the case as it was found in the follow up evaluations.

What are the implications of this research?
After three months follow up evaluations and questionnaires were emailed to the participants. 97% of participants thought that this program was worthwhile, many of the participants continued their walking and even increased their amount of walking. These changes were also passed onto immediate family and friends which helped to increase their activity as well. The nature of this research encouraged people who needed to change their exercise habits to do so, this was due to walking being an easy task, with no expertise needed to participate. Participants were able to undertake the walking when it suited them, also, participants didn’t need to go out and do exercise at the gym as incidental activity such as taking the stairs or walking whilst having lunch was included within the intervention. Results were also reflected in another study, health benefits of physical activity in sedentary workers. This study also showed that changes taken place were in the first four weeks of the program, and participants who already achieved over 10 thousand steps per day either dropped out or did not improve their amount of steps taken. Many other communities and work places have since taken up the “Ten Grand Steps” challenge. From a survey conducted in Western Australia it was shown that achieving 10,000 steps a day was associated in an increase in glucose metabolic clearance in people with diabetes, improved exercise capacity and reduced blood pressure in people with hypertension. 2 It is also positively associated with higher levels of occupational activity. 2