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IT Workers Are Getting Fatter
buzzardsbay writes "While technologies such as virtualization, multi-threading, and blade servers have made the data center leaner, those who work there are getting... well... not leaner. According to a new study by CareerBuilder.com, 34 percent of IT workers say they have gained more than ten pounds in their current jobs. And 16 percent say they've gained at least twice that. The culprits seem to be the stressful-yet-sedentary nature of tech work coupled with our famously poor eating habits. According to the survey, some 41 percent of IT workers eat out for lunch twice or more per week, making portion and calorie control difficult. Eleven percent buy their lunch out of a vending machine at least once a week."
IT jobs like to hand you infinite snacks these days, there's a load of chips and such in the break room. Company culture tends to gravitate towards dubbing a measure of weight gain "The ACME Corp 20" or such nonsense, to which newbies gain some 20 pounds or so and then start limiting snack room visits.
Me, I use the stairs to get to floor 5. I have leg weights. I was in a martial arts class but a shift change took that off my plate, damn. Need to get back to the dojo. Diet? Exercise? Screw that, my entertainment and normal transportation (that is, without elevators) keeps me from being a fat ass.
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I didn't RTFA, but one thing to mention is a lot of companies these days have lots of food just laying around.
Where I work there is always a meeting with food somewhere in the building, and they always order more than they can eat. So of course as soon as the meeting is over, everyone goes and gets the leftovers. Next thing you know, you've had two lunches, two cookies and a bunch of soda you don't need.
It was the same at the last two companies I worked for and I asked a few friends and it's the same where they work.
weird hours
This is actually probably a major part of IT weight gain. I was going to the gym and working out (actually working out, not standing around watching everyone else work out) for a long time, and my weight and my pants size just kept creeping up. Went to the doctor because I figured something must be wrong, and long story short, the problem was getting home at 8-9pm, making dinner, eating dinner, and going to bed. Doc told me to take my dinner to work and eat it at 6pm every day.
In the past 5 months since I got that advice, I've lost almost 40 pounds, putting me at the lowest weight I've been since sometime in the middle of college. Can't say it's made my life great (food is so boring now, since I pretty much have to make the entire week's dinner on Sunday, by Friday dinner is just depressing, and I have to spend the weekend to figure out what dish I'll hate next week...) but I'm sure I'm healthier for it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
While I agree with much of what you say (I walk to lunch if I'm going out to eat, and I take the stairs all day), I've found that stress alone can actually cause me to *gain* weight. A study in a recent volume of Men's Health (can't find the link right now) also pointed to a link between high stress and weight gain.
The caveat is that for me, high stress can be the motivation I need for an extra-hard workout at the gym or an extra 2 miles on my run that day. Recently, after a manager whose job title could officially be "chief roadblock" sent me an email (CC'ing my boss) accusing me of being a "PowerPoint Engineer" (because he couldn't understand my UML diagram since he has no background in software), I hit the gym for 2 hours and took a 15 mile run in the same day. I definitely felt a lot better after that.
It's not a bug, it's a feature
Except nutrition is about balance. Of course you should eat fruits and vegetables etc, but a hamburger has nutrients too. And besides just eating nutritiously won't make you loose weight! A soda has about as many calories as fruit juice.
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