Since being deployed in the Middle East, Navy veteran Anthony Scaletta says he can't sit for extended periods of time because of spinal pain.
For four years, he rode a speedboat over rough waters in the Persian Gulf.
"It wasn't like an accident. It was just overuse, constantly having my body slammed. I was actually out of the military almost a year before the pain even started," the 30-year-old says.
Now, he uses a standing desk at his job as a caseworker for Acculturation for Justice, Access and Peace Outreach, a nonprofit organization in the Hill District that helps African immigrants and refugees.
Scaletta, who recently had spinal-fusion surgery, obtained a standing desk from Relax the Back in East Liberty, through a state-funded program that helps disabled veterans.
"I can't claim that the desk healed me or anything," Scaletta says. "But, I also can't imagine being able to do the job without it. "
Ernest Hemingway and Oliver Wendell Holmes both used standing desks. Advocates says they can help workers prevent back pain, combat drowsiness and improve circulation.
A growing body of evidence seems to indicate that standing desks could be life-savers.
Prolonged sitting has been linked with cardiovascular disease, blood clots, diabetes, obesity and early death. In a March interview with AARP, Marc T. Hamilton, a physiologist at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., went so far as to declare that "sitting is the new smoking."
"Basically, if you are going to sit for long periods of time, you will die earlier," says Karen Marchi, manager of health and wellness for Bayer Corp. in Robinson, where employees can request a standing desk. Bayer chief executive Greg Babe has a standing work station, she says
"We actually see more employees requesting it. It's something I think they're noticing more and more," Marchi says.
She says she reminds employees to "sit for 60, stand for three (minutes)." Even standing still is preferable to sitting, because it forces the body to maintain balance, medical experts say.
"There's multiple sources that are saying the same thing: Inactivity, especially in the form of sitting, seems to be a big risk factor," says cardiologist Christine Lawless, co-chairman of the American College of Cardiology Sports and Exercise Cardiology Council.
An Australian study published earlier this year found that extended inactivity resulted in lower levels of "good" cholesterol and higher levels of C-reactive proteins, which are indicators of inflammation. This was true even for those who engaged in regular moderate to vigorous exercise.
"We found that those who were more sedentary had higher average levels of several cardiovascular and metabolic risk factors, regardless of their exercise time," says Genevieve Healy, a research fellow at the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland, who led the study.
Gregory Peterson, owner of Relax the Back in East Liberty, has been preaching the gospel of standing desks. He sells various motorized "sit to stand desks" which cost from $900 to $1,799. People with home offices have bought them, he says, but it's been a tougher sell to corporations.
"There's more and more studies coming out saying these things can really solve a lot of ills," he says.
Jake Witherell is chief operating officer for Schell Games, a South Side company that develops online games and interactive theme-park attractions. He says about 20 of the 65 employees at Schell use standing desks, whose motors are strong enough to lift or lower the computers, monitors and other desk cargo. He ordered them from GeekDesk, a California-based company whose motorized sit-stand desks can be raised or lowered at the push of a button. That obviates the need for a special adjustable chair, he says. Witherell uses one because of his bad back.
"Although standing is better than sitting, the key, I think, is movement," Witherell says. "It's the ability to switch between the standing and sitting positions multiple times during the day. I may start out the day sitting. I may stand for a couple hours. I may go back to sitting for a meeting."
