Will Stone
Jun 14, 2024
Exercise, nutritious diet and good sleep all support your metabolic health, which Dr. Casey Means argues is key to preventing chronic disease.
In medical school, Casey Means could tell that her own health was slipping.
The culprits? Crummy food, long days hunched over a desk and little sleep -- rites of passage for many future physicians.
“I was getting sore from sitting so much,” she recalls.
Hoping to make a small dent, she asked Stanford to add a few standing desks in the back of their classrooms. The administration shot down the idea, but told her they’d reconsider if she returned with convincing data.
Means tracked down grant funding, trained up in qualitative research and conducted an analysis of her classmates’ sentiments on the matter. “The data was overwhelming,” she says, “Students actually felt that the amount of sitting was diminishing their well-being and their learning.”