‘Walking Meetings’ Feasible For Improving Employee Wellness

HealthDay News — Converting a single weekly meeting to a walking meeting can help raise work-related physical activity levels of white-collar workers, according to a report published online June 23 in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Preventing Chronic Disease.

The researchers analyzed data on 17 white-collar workers recruited from the University of Miami. The employees had meetings once a week in groups of 2 or 3. Over a 3-week period, participants wore accelerometers during the workday. During the first week, the workers went about their normal activities, without a walking meeting. Over the second and third weeks, however, they had 1 weekly walking meeting lasting 30 minutes.

The researchers found that participants increased their moderate/vigorous physical activity from 107 minutes in the first week to 114 minutes in the second week and then to 117 minutes in the third week.

“Taken together, the study enrollment, response rate (94%), and completion of walking meetings (88%) suggest that walking meetings were feasible for this sample of white-collar workers,” the authors wrote.

Reference

Kling HE, Yang X, Messiah SE, Arheart KL, Brannan D, Caban-Martinez AJ. Opportunities for Increased Physical Activity in the Workplace: the Walking Meeting (WaM) Pilot Study. Prev Chronic Dis. 2016;13:160111. doi:10.5888/pcd13.160111.