Standing desks make children more active, less sedentary: Study

Standing desks were also linked to a decrease in sitting time ranging from 59 to 64 minutes per school day. “In schools, children spend over 50 percent of the school day sitting – traveling to school, during class, at lunch, sometimes during recess, traveling home after school, etc.,” said lead study author Karl Minges of the Yale School of Nursing in Connecticut. “While one cannot easily reduce sitting time at lunch or during transportation, changing the classroom environment to be more conducive to standing seems like low-hanging fruit,” Minges added. 

For the current study, researchers focused on standing desks used in first through sixth grades. Students in the studies were around eight to 12 years old, on average. Four studies were done in the US, while two were from New Zealand and one was in Germany. An additional article included data from Australia and the UK. 

The types of desks varied across the studies, with some configurations fixed at a standing height and other adjustable options that allowed students to alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. 

In two studies, children spent significantly more time standing after they got the desks than they did before, while another found students spent 71 fewer minutes each day watching television and using computers.  

“The long term use of these desks might result in reduction even outside the school environment,” said Dr Seema Kumar, a pediatric endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic.