The Workplace's Newest Weight Loss Trick: The Moving Office

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on September 17

The wellness police have some new surpises for us.

Coming soon to an office near you: treadmills that double as workstations. Walking meetings. Conference rooms outfitted with exercise bikes instead of oval tables and chairs. Office game rooms pimped out with Wii Fits.

This is not the stuff of the future. All of this and more was rolled out recently at Minneapolis employment staffing firm Salo.

The company partnered with Mayo Clinic endocrinologist James Levine, M.D in a study that ascertained whether a moving office would result in employee weight loss.

The results: Oh Yeah.

Dr. Levine re-engineered Salo’s office to increase movement and activity by building tne place out with the above-mentioned devices. The gym meets the office. Cool!

A total of eighteen girthy Salo-ites volunteered. Over the course of the six-month study, they lost a total of 156 pounds, or an average 8.8 pounds per person. 90 percent of that was fat.

Another key finding of the Salo-Mayo study was that productivity was not lost due to the new environment. Salo’s revenue increased nearly 10 percent during the first three months of the study and the company recorded its highest-ever monthly revenue in January 2008, at the midpoint of the research.

Stay tuned.

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