Physical activity of office workers

Inactivity or insufficient physical activity is risk factor for metabolic or cardiovascular diseases. In most of cases the nature of work of office employees does not require high physical efforts and consists mostly of sitting but the reports on leisure activity of office workers are still lacking. Thus, the aim of the study was to assess physical activity of civil and local administration workers and bank officials. 293 randomly selected office workers took part in the study. They were recruited from employees of local (n=97) or civil (n=119) administration authorities or banks (n=77) and subjected to interviews with the use of IPAQ questionnaire (short version). Low physical activity was noted in about 70% of local administration employees, in almost 50% of bank officials and about 35% of workers employed in civil administration. Total daily time spent on sitting was on average 9.7 plus or minus 1.7 hour/day irrespectively of gender or group studied. Very low level of physical activity of Polish office workers may be a result of improper habits of spending spare time, low awareness of beneficial effects of physical activity and still insufficient promotion of healthy/active lifestyle in East-European countries.