Abstract
Sedentary behavior has increased significantly over the past 25 years and has been associated with declines in overall health. In addition, research has shown that post-secondary students are reporting higher levels of stress as compared to students from previous decades. In response to increasing concerns of student health, post-secondary institutions from across the globe developed and endorsed the Okanagan Charter, an international charter for health promoting universities and colleges. This charter has led to various initiatives to foster the health and well-being of university students. One such initiative was the pilot implementation of an active study station, specifically a treadmill desk, at the UBC Okanagan campus. The purpose of this research was to conduct a pilot study to gain an understanding of the students' experiences of using the treadmill desk and its perceived impact on their well-being. The results showed that the treadmill desk was used 326 times by 80 unique users meaning many of the students were repeat users. In addition, 41 students (31 female) completed an online survey related to their experience with the desk. Survey results indicated that students found the treadmill desk easy to use (M = 4.60; SD=0.50), felt they could focus while being active on the treadmill desk (M = 3.74; SD=0.96) and experienced an improved mood (M = 4.00; SD=0.86) due to using the treadmill desk. Research and practical recommendations are presented.
