Brown & Jones’ Court Reporter Rachel Gwidt edits her transcript using a standing work station.

As a profession, court reporting has been very good to me.  I love being co-owner of Brown & Jones Reporting, hiring and mentoring reporters, and networking with new clients. I have the best work family imaginable.  I’m also lucky that I can still find time to take jobs as a reporter.  I enjoy the challenge of taking down every word, and hearing and learning new things on a daily basis.  Like many professions, however, there’s one major drawback to reporting: it’s a sedentary job.  We sit, often hours on end, in courtrooms and depositions, and then again as we edit the transcripts. To make matters worse, we spend our leisure time in front of the computer or television, checking emails, paying bills, or catching up on the latest episode of our favorite show. The toll sitting takes on our overall health is a hot topic in the media.  Amby Burfoot recently addressed the issue in Runner’s World Magazine, and offered tips to help combat the negative effects of a sedentary job:

We live in an obesigenic culture, where sedentary lifestyles, advertising, and food availability conspire to make us gain weight.  As a result, more than two thirds of American adults are overweight, leading to obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Unfortunately, experts say dieting alone isn’t the answer- we can consume calories far more quickly than we can burn them through exercise.

So, the article goes on to say, “exercise doesn’t work.  Diets don’t work.  What does?”  The answer may be “energy flux,” where the secret is simply to move– not for a specified amount of time or intensity- just move more.

In the 1950s, Harvard nutrition professor Jean Mayer, Ph.D., studied the diet, exercise, and weight of a group of working men.  Workers were divided into five groups according to physical demands of their jobs: sedentary (1), light work (2), up to very heavy work (5). Surprisingly, groups 2 through 5 weighed roughly the same; these men achieved a natural balance between their calories consumed and calories burned, independent of their diets.

The sedentary workers in Group 1 found no such balance.  They ate more than they needed and put on more weight than the others.  The study concluded that humans have evolved to exercise a certain amount every day.  When we do, our energy flux remains in balance, but without daily exercise, the weight-control system malfunctions.

This article is not meant to depress you, rather it’s is a wake-up call. The court reporter workday is a sedentary one, and we each must make an active effort to compensate for this each day.  As far as diets go, the best diet is the one you’re most likely to stick with.  The same goes for exercise: Do whatever keeps you motivated and excited, whether it’s yoga, bootcamp, strength training, swimming, 5-Ks, or walking your dog.  If you get tired of one exercise, do another.  Just don’t stop – ever.  As Joseph S. Alpert, M.D., editor in chief of the American Journal of Medicine says, “You only have to exercise on the days that you eat.”

Move more at work.  Take the stairs, stand, stretch, schedule walking meetings.  Take advantage of every break.  “Sitting is the new smoking, and we all need to cut back”, Burfoot says.  Exercise does much more than burn calories.  It improves blood sugar, heart health, blood pressure, and mood. Remember these four words relating to diet, health, weight, and exercise:  “Food.  Feet.  Water.  Repeat.”

Jane M. Jones, RMR, CRR
Brown & Jones Reporting, Inc.
Wisconsin Court Reporters