托福阅读背景知识：站着办公的风险

　　A new study says that standing up at your desk doesn’t actually decrease your risk of death-by-office, unless you’re physically active otherwise.

　　新研究表明：除非经常锻炼，否则站着工作也不会降低猝死风险。

　　After several studies asserted that sitting at work all day is slowly killing us, researchers at the University of Exeter and University College London took another look at the claims. The Washington Post reports:

　　此前，已有多项研究表明，久坐会慢慢地致人死亡。但埃克塞特大学和伦敦大学学院的几位研究员却从另一角度进行了研究。华盛顿邮报报道：

　　Researchers tracked 16 years’ worth of health data from 5,132 people in the Whitehall II study cohort. Participants reported their total time sitting and how long they sat during four different situations: at work, watching television, leisure time and non-television leisure time. Researchers also tracked time spent walking daily and on physical activity.

　　此次研究的调查对象来自白厅二级定群研究，共5132人。研究人员对他们长达16年的健康数据进行了跟踪。调查对象需汇报他们坐下的总时长，以及在四种不同场合——工作、看电视、业余活动，以及不看电视的业余活动——分别坐下的时长。研究人员还跟踪调查了他们每日步行和运动的时长。

　　After controlling for a number of factors, including diet and general health, researchers found the overall mortality risk for these participants wasn’t influenced by how long they sat or by the kind of sitting. And the researchers cautioned that too much emphasis on not sitting shouldn’t take the place of promoting physical activity.

　　研究人员在控制了包括饮食、整体健康在内的许多变量后，发现：调查对象的总死亡率不受久坐时间和坐姿的影响。研究人员告诫称，人们不应过份强调久坐的风险，而忽视强调运动的重要。

　　What’s particularly interesting about the study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, is that researchers didn’t just focus on sitting during the workday, but factored in all kinds of sitting-specific data as well as rates of physical activity. Their conclusion was that “sitting time was not associated with all-cause mortality risk.” Basically, more elements are in play than just whether you’re sitting down at work, and your levels of physical activity are the greatest health indicator.

　　这项研究发表在《国际流行病学杂志》上。其中特别有趣的是，研究员没有只研究人们在工作时的久坐情况，还考虑到了各种相关数据和运动频率。其结论是“久坐与全因死亡率无关”。总而言之，影响健康的元素很多，不仅仅在于是否在工作时久坐。能体现健康状况的是锻炼情况。

　　So what does this all mean? It appears that the act of working while standing up—which has become a trendy thing to do, especially in tech offices—doesn’t help your health, if you’re not actually exercising otherwise. If you never make it to the gym, you might as well just sit down. This is good news for the makers of treadmill desks, however.

　　所以这到底意味着什么?现在流行站着办公，科技公司尤为突出。但是如果不锻炼，站着工作也似乎没什么用;如果永远都不去健身，还不如就坐着呢。这对跑步机办公桌的生产商来说，可是个好消息。

　　The last office where I worked jumped on the standing desk trend hard, installing desks that could be raised for all workers. They also had a treadmill desk, and a bike desk. While the option to stand is certainly nice as a change in the middle of a monotonous workday, this research suggests it’s not the cure-all that adherents would like to claim.

　　我之前工作的地方勉强跟上了站立式办公桌的潮流，装上了可随意调节高度的桌子。此外，还有一张跑步机办公桌和一张自行车办公桌。当然，在乏味的工作之余能站着工作也是个不错的选择，但研究表明，站着工作并不是所谓的万灵丹。

　　“Our study overturns current thinking on the health risks of sitting and indicates that the problem lies in the absence of movement rather than the time spent sitting itself,” study author Melvyn Hillsdon of the University of Exeter said in a statement. “Any stationary posture where energy expenditure is low may be detrimental to health, be it sitting or standing.”

　　“我们的研究推翻了当下人们对久坐危害的认知，并指出危害健康的原因在于缺乏锻炼，而不是久坐，”来自埃克塞特大学的研究作者梅尔文·希尔斯顿在一份声明中说道。“身体静止不动，能量消耗就低，从而危害健康，不管是坐着还是站着都一样。”

　　The takeaway here is companies that truly want to assist worker health should invest money in options like free exercise classes and gym reimbursements. They should encourage employees to go outside and actually walk around, not simply stand up at their computers. And maybe it means that everyone who insists that standing up is the only way to work can climb down off their high desk.

　　这表明，真正关心员工健康的公司应该把钱花在购买免费运动课程和报销健身费用上。公司应鼓励员工走出办公室，四处走走，而不是只在电脑前站着工作。或许这意味着那些坚信“站着是一解决办法”的人终于能从高高的桌子上爬下来了。

　　Vocabulary

　　treadmill desk: 跑步机办公桌

　　detrimental: 不利的;有害的

　　reimbursement: 报销