Sit -stand postures for healthy living, a longterm research

I'm passionate to learn the different socio-cognitive phenomenon that work for children.  After having my own kids, I have realized that children have been sitting for too long to conform to the societal norms.   Researchers at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute have studied sedentary behavior for many years in adults.  They have documented that humans sit for more than 15 hours per day or 8 years in their total life span.  Studies at Cornell University led by Professor Alan Hedge report that humans need to change through a variety of frequent movements throughout the day.   These microbreaks improve the levels of comfort, work performance, and chances of musculoskeletal injuries.

Here is my point to argue: if adults at workstations are given an opportunity to modify their posture, isn't it important to address this for children?   Researchers have found that schools are cutting down recesses to provide ‘extra enrichment’ to students.  This is detrimental to their academic performance and physical health.  So as an advocate and a voice for younger children, I have embarked on this journey to explore how do sitting or standing at academic settings impact the cognitive performance of children.  In this role I act as a lead researcher as well as project manager.  Dr. Anil Kumar, an Associate Professor in ergonomics is guiding me with this research. I reached out to several manufacturers that produce the sit-stand desks for children.  I am grateful for the support from all these people to pursue this long term research study.  Parent meetings and teacher support has been very helpful in understanding several aspects of a sit-stand desk.   

Project Manager and Lead Researcher, San Jose State University, CA

 ·  Initiated research project from conceptualization: ‘Sit-Stand desks for healthy living and academic achievements in children.’  

·  Opened communication with several manufacturers and proposed this project to school districts, parents and caregivers.

·  Procured biometric devices from manufacturers to assist data collection- eyetracking, accelerometers, IMU's, EEG etc. 

·  Developed experimental design protocol, created survey, and conducted usability analysis of various work stations for children.

·  Conducted pilot phases of upcoming comparative usability study for sit-stand desks to recommend design modifications. 

·  Paper to be presented at future conference (2019).