<story><title>Why Standing Desks Are Overrated</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/upshot/why-standing-desks-are-overrated.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WhompingWindows</author><text>This article is by a pediatrician, not a physical therapist or a subject matter expert. The article basically consists of the author pointing to some studies on the subject and concluding that there&amp;#x27;s not yet definitive, decisive evidence as to the long-term benefits of standing desks. Anyone who reads about standing desks knew that already. And, as someone who is known amongst friends and colleagues for using one, I&amp;#x27;ve had numerous cases of people saying &amp;quot;Welp WhompingWindows, your standing desk is pointless, I saw a buzzfeed article about how a single study from North Dakota State said they&amp;#x27;re not great.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The title of this post and the the title of the article are not justified. The author&amp;#x27;s take-home in the final paragraph is that standing is not exercise, but standing desks may help those with back or neck pain and some people just prefer it. So, really, there&amp;#x27;s no evidence here to support the &amp;quot;Overrated&amp;quot; claim in the headline.&lt;p&gt;Like every post I see on standing desks, or anything with a controversial&amp;#x2F;contentious set of studies&amp;#x2F;proponents, each writer can select whichever set of studies from the vast array that conforms to their viewpoint. Those studies that disagree with the final conclusion? Better point out potential confounders, non-causal links, selection bias, etc. Drag out the usual methodological suspects to invalidate an opinion you don&amp;#x27;t agree with. It&amp;#x27;s easy to straw-man, though it&amp;#x27;s also easy to go to the discussion and just copy the authors&amp;#x27; own assessment of their studys&amp;#x27; weaknesses.&lt;p&gt;This happens all the time in science like epidemiology, you&amp;#x27;re not an epidemiologist if you haven&amp;#x27;t made a dozen complaints about an article&amp;#x27;s methods before considering its ramifications. Even Einstein - despite the evidence to the contrary, he could not accept some of the quantum-mechanical conclusions that his work helped bring about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JshWright</author><text>The &amp;quot;overrated&amp;quot; claim is that standing desks address the health concerns of sitting too much (a claim that I have heard many, many times). There is no evidence to support that claim. Your third paragraph accuses the author of cherry-picking the studies. Is there an example of a study you feel they should have included that supports your accusation?&lt;p&gt;The author is not claiming to be a subject matter expert. The fact that they are a pediatrician is irrelevant. Their argument is well sourced, and &amp;quot;even&amp;quot; a pediatrician is able to read and understand papers in adjacent medical fields.&lt;p&gt;Dr Carroll is also known for the Healthcare Triage YouTube channel, which has numerous video explainers on topics like how to critically evaluate the strength of studies, the dangers of cherry-picking data, etc.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Standing Desks Are Overrated</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/upshot/why-standing-desks-are-overrated.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>WhompingWindows</author><text>This article is by a pediatrician, not a physical therapist or a subject matter expert. The article basically consists of the author pointing to some studies on the subject and concluding that there&amp;#x27;s not yet definitive, decisive evidence as to the long-term benefits of standing desks. Anyone who reads about standing desks knew that already. And, as someone who is known amongst friends and colleagues for using one, I&amp;#x27;ve had numerous cases of people saying &amp;quot;Welp WhompingWindows, your standing desk is pointless, I saw a buzzfeed article about how a single study from North Dakota State said they&amp;#x27;re not great.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The title of this post and the the title of the article are not justified. The author&amp;#x27;s take-home in the final paragraph is that standing is not exercise, but standing desks may help those with back or neck pain and some people just prefer it. So, really, there&amp;#x27;s no evidence here to support the &amp;quot;Overrated&amp;quot; claim in the headline.&lt;p&gt;Like every post I see on standing desks, or anything with a controversial&amp;#x2F;contentious set of studies&amp;#x2F;proponents, each writer can select whichever set of studies from the vast array that conforms to their viewpoint. Those studies that disagree with the final conclusion? Better point out potential confounders, non-causal links, selection bias, etc. Drag out the usual methodological suspects to invalidate an opinion you don&amp;#x27;t agree with. It&amp;#x27;s easy to straw-man, though it&amp;#x27;s also easy to go to the discussion and just copy the authors&amp;#x27; own assessment of their studys&amp;#x27; weaknesses.&lt;p&gt;This happens all the time in science like epidemiology, you&amp;#x27;re not an epidemiologist if you haven&amp;#x27;t made a dozen complaints about an article&amp;#x27;s methods before considering its ramifications. Even Einstein - despite the evidence to the contrary, he could not accept some of the quantum-mechanical conclusions that his work helped bring about.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brightball</author><text>I actually have a Varidesk so I can alternate periodically because I found that I was much more tired towards the end of the day if I sat all day. Also experienced a lot of back discomfort. A lot of my motivation for getting the standing desk was that it seemed like an easier option than one of the really expensive chairs that are out there.&lt;p&gt;I still use the standing desk every now and then, but after seeing some recommendations I ended up getting a Bungee chair from The Container Store and it&amp;#x27;s really solved all of the issues that drove me to a standing desk in the first place with a reasonable price point.</text></comment>