Face-to-face counseling and smartphone technology to promote physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour in working adults

Currently, the importance of regular physical activity (PA) gets increasingly higher. Up to one third of the European adult population is considered as physically inactive (i.e. does not meet the recommended PA guideline). Especially in adults, the workplace is frequently used as target for PA promotion. The reach of such PA promotion programs at the workplace is considered large. Besides that, the program can be implemented at multiple levels (from an individual to an environmental level). From an employer's perspective, one would prefer healthy, physically active and productive employees. Besides the beneficial effects of regular PA, recent evidence reveals the detrimental effects of too much sitting at work. Previous research indicates that adult employees sit for more than 70% of the work day. The purpose of workplace PA promotion is, in particular, to replace sitting with incidental light intensity PA. Activities such as walking the stairs more often or taking a walk during lunch time is encouraged. The present doctoral project covers two main conceptual elements: the principle of Move More and Sit Less. The first part of the doctoral project will be about stimulating adult employees to Move More and its second part on encouraging sedentary employees to Sit Less. Through individualized PA counseling, physically inactive employees were encouraged to adapt a regular PA pattern. PA counselors are trained to guide and motivate adults to both start being physically active and remain active. Motivation is a key factor to remain physically active. The self-determination theory fosters (autonomous) motivation and has, therefore, become a theoretical basis of multiple PA promotion trials. The purpose of the first project was to evaluate the effectiveness of a self-determination theory based 12-week PA counseling intervention among physically inactive employees. Both short and long-term (6 month follow-up) effectiveness will be assessed in terms of PA behavior (both objectively and subjectively assessed), anthropometric measures and psychosocial variables (motivation among others). The second part of the doctoral project consists of an intervention targeting workplace sedentary (sitting) behavior. By implementing novel dynamic chairs and multi-level dynamic standing advice (i.e. individual, environmental and organizational level), we aim to influence workplace sitting behavior in desk-based office workers.status: publishe