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10 ways companies can encourage workers to move

An estimated 80 percent of American workers spend their days seated in front of a computer, and the majority report that they hate sitting all day, wrote Dr. James Levine in his new book “Get Up: Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It’’. Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic/Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative, advises corporations on how to increase productivity, boost mood, and decrease back pain and other health problems by getting their employees to move more throughout the day.

Here are some of his tips:

1. Ban e-mail for certain time periods, requiring employees to deliver messages in person.

2. Encourage standing up and pacing when talking on the phone.

3. Install inexpensive mini-stepper devices in conference rooms.

4. Provide a stand-sit desk. Even better if it is equipped with a treadmill, balance board, stabilizer ball, or other exercise equipment.

5. Encourage people to socialize at work by grouping them in open settings without walls or doors.

6. Link health care plan premiums to the amount of daily movement employees complete.

7. Hold walk-and-talk meetings.

8. Mark walking trails around the office floors.

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9. Move trash cans and printers farther away to increase step counts.

10. Have an office dog that needs to be walked.


Deborah Kotz can be reached at dkotz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @debkotz2.