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Scientists Find Physically Demanding Jobs Are Linked To Greater Risk of Early Death (metro.co.uk)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Metro: Researchers in the Netherlands claim that a "physical activity paradox" exists, where exercise may only be good for you if it's done outside of your job. Manual laborers may be physically active all day but that doesn't actually help them. In fact, the research claims that it might actually increase their risk of dying early. "While we know leisure-time physical activity is good for you, we found that occupational physical activity has an 18% increased risk of early mortality for men," says Pieter Coenen, public health researcher at UV University medical centre in Amsterdam. "These men are dying earlier than those who are not physically active in their occupation."

He says that it's all down to the type of exercise you do in your spare time, versus occupational physical activity. When you choose to exercise, you can take rest periods when you want -- something that often may not be available to you if you're working on a building site (for example). The research combined results from 17 studies, dated between 1960 and 2010 -- looking at data on almost 200,000 people.
The study has been published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

169 comments

  1. Correlation isn't causation by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Correlation isn't causation. Many physically demanding jobs (fireman, mechanic, building trades) involve more exposure to toxic chemicals than other jobs.

    1. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People always say 'correlation isn't causation', and I think that often they are wrong. But not in this case...'

    2. Re:Correlation isn't causation by arth1 · · Score: 2

      Correlation isn't causation.

      Correct. It might be that those with a lower life expectancy for other reasons, like poverty during childhood, more often end up in physically demanding jobs.

    3. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also tend to be less educated and had worse upbringing with limited access to fresh foods. Keep in mind many of this jobs work up a appetite and a salad is not going to cut it.

    4. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does that term mean? I see it kicked around here a lot and no one explains it.
       
      -=BeauHD=-

    5. Re:Correlation isn't causation by quantaman · · Score: 2

      Correlation isn't causation. Many physically demanding jobs (fireman, mechanic, building trades) involve more exposure to toxic chemicals than other jobs.

      I don't even think it's that.

      This is one of those studies where I think "they're professional researchers who must have done proper controls", but at the same time the class of people who do physically demanding jobs are exactly the people I'd expect to be at risk of early death regardless of the job itself.

      It sounds like they didn't make a lot of adjustment for socioeconomic status since they figured that physical labour might be a reason why they die younger:
      Another explanation for the association of occupational PA with mortality (in men) may be the possibility of residual confounding, as high intensity occupational PA is typically prevalent among blue collar workers from lower socioeconomic positions77 and low socioeconomic status is associated with higher mortality.60 However, instead of being a confounder, occupational PA may actually be one pathway for the known mortality risks associated with low socioeconomic status, and adjustment for socioeconomic position would thus constitute an over-adjustment, introducing a conservative bias.

      I can buy this a little bit, the physical fatigue of those jobs might make substance abuse or overeating more common. But I really wonder if they're just measuring the fact that the uneducated people who tend to work physically demanding jobs tend to make more unhealthy choices in general.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    6. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forget toxic chemicals, runners normally don't need to worry about accidentally cutting off a limb, falling two stories, getting crushed by pallet of concrete, etc...

      This is data mining, not research. Research is supposed to take into account as many factors as possible, such as type of work. Running a data mining algorithm on a data set and claiming the results as research is bullshit.

    7. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True, and less education and lower salaries means also less healthy food. This combined with higher rate of smoking and the depression caused by dull and/or underpaid work is also causing early deaths.

    8. Re:Correlation isn't causation by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ancient Roman athletes were in excellent physical condition, ate a healthy, mostly vegetarian diet, received the best medical care available and were outside a lot in fresh air.

      Yet, a lot of them seemed die young.

      Maybe we need to do some more research into the sport of Gladiators to fully understand this.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    9. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It means if some "fact" or statistic coincident with two phenomena, it doesn't necessarily mean one causes the other.
      Keep in mind though, that it is stated so often it's practically become a cliche, because it makes people feel intelligent to apply skepticism.
      It is almost certainly stated when one actually *does* cause the other.

    10. Re:Correlation isn't causation by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      Correct. It might be that those with a lower life expectancy for other reasons, like poverty during childhood, more often end up in physically demanding jobs.

      Or the simplest solution might just be correct: That hard work will wear you out. I know it does me.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    11. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can buy this a little bit, the physical fatigue of those jobs might make substance abuse or overeating more common.

      Gee. Bias much? Have you considered that the former might be because they have such a shit job and substance abuse is they only way they feel happiness? Have you considered that being physically active all day they actually require more food so it's hard to gauge when you're overeating especially as metabolism may slow down even with continued physical activity?

      But I really wonder if they're just measuring the fact that the uneducated people who tend to work physically demanding jobs tend to make more unhealthy choices in general.

      Unhealthy choices like working in physically demanding jobs. Seriously, people in an office recognize that you can have carpal tunnel from overworking your fingers in typing and recognize the strongly deleterious effects of that. Extend that to their whole body, and the fault isn't the physical activity but "unhealthy choices". Nice sanctimonious bullshit.

      PS - There's a reason for the term "working yourself to death". The stress of family, paying bills on a salary substantial less than white collar, mandatory overtime and dealing with scheduling with the family, and just the stress of all the physical work and the dangerous associated with whatever you're working with, and it's very easy to see that the overall effect could easily be negative. But, yea, I guess it's easier to talk about unhealthy decisions like being poor. We'll just ignore that not everyone can make the same wage and no amount of wage inequality will encourage away the need for burger flippers, garbage men, police offers, etc--at least until we can automate away those jobs.

    12. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But in this case, the correlation is more or less causal because it is specifically these labor jobs that more likely than other jobs tend to involve machinery, chemicals, other physical hazards, long hours, pared-back safety protocols, etc.
      They are part and parcel of these types of jobs much more so than "the average" retail, business, academic, etc. The truth is there are MANY causal factors and MANY of them are correlating here because they're PRESENT!

      *(And the OP is a fuckwit.)

    13. Re:Correlation isn't causation by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Or the simplest solution might just be correct: That hard work will wear you out. I know it does me.

      Next time, try putting down the coffee cake and Mountain Dew beforehand.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    14. Re:Correlation isn't causation by johnsie · · Score: 1

      1. The world is getting warmer 2. There are less pirates. Therefore 'global warming' must be caused by a lack of pirates. It's easy to put two statistics together, but that doesn't mean they are related or that one causes the other.

    15. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. I'm a chef and kitchens are an easy example of a wide spectrum of physical demands (and chemical exposure, and stress levels) amongst the many positions, insofar as completely scuttling us for this kind of statistic. Not to mention how different a kitchen is from a construction site, yet all of us seem to be lumped under this umbrella of physical labor.

    16. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But maybe the lack of pirates is linked... instance... our industrialized world does not tolerate pirates and it produces higher temperatures...

    17. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ancient Roman athletes were in excellent physical condition, ate a healthy, mostly vegetarian diet, received the best medical care available and were outside a lot in fresh air.

      Yet, a lot of them seemed die young.

      Maybe we need to do some more research into the sport of Gladiators to fully understand this.

      Meanwhile, the lions and bears ate mostly Roman athletes in excellent physical condition.

    18. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And what have the Romans ever done for us? Besides the aquaduct.

    19. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correlation isn't causation. Many physically demanding jobs (fireman, mechanic, building trades) involve more exposure to toxic chemicals than other jobs.

      Uhhhhh...

      "The research combined results from 17 studies, dated between 1960 and 2010 -- looking at data on almost 200,000 people."

      Just how many data points would you require to not throw yet another study off the correlation-isn't-causation cliff? Half a century not a large enough timeframe? 18 studies minimum to not immediately want to call bullshit? There is a point of invalidity with the this-doesn't-mean-that excuse, which for some odd reason never seems to be met no matter how many data points are involved. One of the primary activities of this study was combining half a century worth of previous studies, which ironically works to eliminate the correlation-isn't-causation excuse.

      One would think that one of the largest windows of study took into account your variables. It's no surprise that we have proven diminishing returns by bodybuilders who know that punishing the human body with 12-hour workouts are not 300% more effective than 3-hour workouts. We've also known for a long time that the human body is a machine not unlike many others, which longevity will suffer if stressed and punished.

    20. Re:Correlation isn't causation by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      Correct. It might be that those with a lower life expectancy for other reasons, like poverty during childhood, more often end up in physically demanding jobs.

      Or it could have something to do with the culture of manual labor jobs like general contractors and sub-contractors often involve people that chain smoke Marlboro Reds and having a poor diet, at least in the USA.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    21. Re:Correlation isn't causation by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      Ancient Roman athletes were in excellent physical condition, ate a healthy, mostly vegetarian diet, received the best medical care available and were outside a lot in fresh air.

      Get off your vegan soap box. They ate KETO diet, that's why.

      --
      We'll make great pets
    22. Re:Correlation isn't causation by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Or the simplest solution might just be correct: That hard work will wear you out. I know it does me.

      If you're playing volleyball, and you start having chest pains, it's customary to stop. If you're working to pay the rent so that your family can have a place to live, and you start having chest pains, you might just try to push through it... and die. If you're powerlifting weights in a gym they're on a bar and you've probably got a mat. If you're lifting four hundred pounds of transmission, you can easily drop it on your leg. And so on, and so on.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    23. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You should contact the researchers, as I am sure the fact that correlation does not imply causation never occured to them and led them to completely fail to take this into account when analysing the data

    24. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I came here to say this. Itâ(TM)s more likely that people with physically active jobs are poorer. A relationship with wealth and life expectancy is already established. Itâ(TM)s no paradox!

    25. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You talk as if for many being poor isn't the culmination of a lifetime of bad decisions.
      The fact is that a number of people from really economically depressed childhoods have done quite well. They do it the same way those from higher socioeconomic do. Through making good decisions. Very few middle class people are successful because they inherit loads of cash from their parents. Their success is built on good decisions. Being middle class only makes those decisions easy. It's really simple to make bad decisions when you're from a middle class background too, and people do and they end up in poverty. Likewise it's possible to make good decisions when you're poor and climb into the middle class. Lots of people do it. Others just complain about how their poor, never looking at the bad decisions that keep them in poverty.

    26. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are more pirates now than ever before. Your argument is flawed.

    27. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, the cause of their early deaths is poverty. Economic terrorism kills more people than guns do.

      God bless ISIS for sawing some heads off rich bitches. 9-11 was a Jew job. ae911truth dot org

    28. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The worst burn wounds I've ever seen were on a guy who got them in a restaurant kitchen. You know those little spaces between the counters where all the cooks have to weave and squeeze around each other? Well, he got a few gallons of boiling water dumped all over his torso.

      Now someone can chime in with another cliche, "Anecdotes are not data".

    29. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      MODDOWN! ; creimer spam post again!

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      The tests we ran on Chris have shown that Chris has the intelligence of an ameba:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      So, technically, he is able to conceive some kind of agenda but it will be silly or impossible to follow on a human scale.

      For example, Chris had an agenda to post anything he felt like on Slashdot which did not work well because it was based on his false beliefs that he had an infinite number of karma points as he wrote here several times.

      Several people here explained to Chris that karma maxed out at some level like 50 or so but Chris kept on insisting that his python script had confirmed that he had millions of karma points!

      Oh well, as I wrote before: "It isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody."

      For the valuable /. users that might already have read the following, please note that there is an important update.

      IMPORTANT UPDATE:
      Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education has invested money to buy Chris a new chair:
      http://www.keynamics.com/image...

      Information about Christopher Dale Reimer and autistic people:

      Autistic people have obsessions about things normal people don't care. For example, one of our autistic patient went haywire when he realized that there was a penny missing in his pocket change.

      To calm him down, one of our educator pretended to have found it on the floor and gave a penny to him.

      The autistic patient condition went even worse because he realized it wasn't the same penny!

      Chris has an obsession with budgeting every penny. He doesn't understand that most people do not budget to the penny and have a flexible amount they allow for miscellaneous items.

      I am Nancy Guerrero and I am Director of Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We use Chris' (a.k.a. creimer,cdreimer) picture in our document because he is the hardest case we have ever had to handle:
      http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...

      Our artists were inspired by the low carb diet that Christopher follows scrupulously for the small lunch box and by the picture linked below for the rest. I am sure that you will notice the similarities such as the bump on the side of his chest and more:
      https://ibb.co/gVad65

      Please be easy on Christopher although, I am aware that some of our staff handling Chris post joke comments here and obvoiusly, the Santa Clara County Office of Education disapprove that behavior vehemently:
      http://ibb.co/mRVSaG

      But it isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody.

      Thank You dear users,
      ---
      Nancy Guerrero
      Director
      Special Education
      Santa Clara County Office of Education

      Exactly Nancy,

      It seems like Chris is a victim here. He keeps on reading those SEO, youtube algorithm, basically get rich quick sites. He doesn't realize that he is the fish for them since they make money off him with their own schemes. Then, he wastes his time trying to implement what those sites suggest and he ends up disturbing people.

      I mean, those crooks tell Chris that h

    30. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why we invented the three-course or the four-course meal. They should get an appetizer, a salad and fries and pasta and whatever calorie heavy.

    31. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anecdotes are not data

    32. Re:Correlation isn't causation by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 1

      There is really no causation, only repetition:

      "In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law — in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy." -- Philip K. Dick

    33. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "good" decisions, or ability to see different or more options than they may be expected to see to choose from?

    34. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      What does that term mean? I see it kicked around here a lot and no one explains it.

      -=BeauHD=-

      touché

    35. Re: Correlation isn't causation by maroberts · · Score: 1

      Anecdotes are data, they're just not necessarily good data

      --

      Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
      Karma: Chameleon

    36. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You talk as if for many being poor isn't the culmination of a lifetime of bad decisions.

      If everyone made good decisions, would there no longer be poverty? The answer is no, there would still be poverty.

      The fact is that a number of people from really economically depressed childhoods have done quite well. They do it the same way those from higher socioeconomic do. Through making good decisions.

      And do those people displace people in the higher socioeconomic spectrum? Not entirely because the population is still growing. If 80% of those in economically depressed childhoods make good decisions will the poverty level go down by anything close to 80%? No.

      Very few middle class people are successful because they inherit loads of cash from their parents. Their success is built on good decisions. Being middle class only makes those decisions easy.

      It's easier to make a good decisions when you have parents that literally have the time to be there for you, have experience to guide you on the path to success, and can partially support those decisions through at least partial funding of further education expenses. You certainly won't motivate a lot of people though if your parent does hard work and isn't paid well. Perhaps if the point was to push for smart work? Of course, then that further degenerates into arguing the poor are dumb.

      It's really simple to make bad decisions when you're from a middle class background too, and people do and they end up in poverty. Likewise it's possible to make good decisions when you're poor and climb into the middle class. Lots of people do it.

      The question isn't if "lots" do it. The questions are (1) do good decisions consistently lead to good outcomes, (2) are there actual equal opportunities to make good decisions, and (3) do bad decisions consistently lead to bad outcomes? The problem is people, like you, take the results and then interject supposition on why things turned out like they did. The only real way to actually know these things would be to shadow people as they grow up to actually record their decisions, their opportunities, and their outcomes. Otherwise, people just paper over the bad decisions or ignore where opportunities come from.

      Others just complain about how their poor, never looking at the bad decisions that keep them in poverty.

      Funny, but people who are well off don't complain about the bad decisions that keep them well off. Perhaps it's because their concerns are the outcome, not the decisions? I'd expect another part of it is that a lot of people who are poor simply accept that they're poor. So long as there is poverty, it's a given that some people will be poor. I guess it's a bad decision to not try every angle to become richer?

    37. Re:Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is vegan keto too. What's your problem?

    38. Re:Correlation isn't causation by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      how many of those physically demanding jobs also have voluntary, yet steady access to things like "a sixer per night", or "hush puppies"?

      Most of the blue collar/tradesmen i've known are basically sedentary after work (which makes sense), and so, so many also drank like fish, smoked, and ate shitty food.

      (Not to mention that postmen are pretty frequently trotted out as an example of physical activity at work increasing lifespan/quality of life -- since they you know, walk almost all day, every day)

    39. Re:Correlation isn't causation by mysidia · · Score: 1

      Actually.. SOMETIMES correlation IS the result of causation; causation is ONE possible thing that can lead to correlation.... SOME physically demanding jobs involve more exposure to toxic chemicals; However, it is far too few jobs to explain this correlation, and due to OSHA requirements, safety precautions are required.

      The concept in the summary is interesting When you choose to exercise, you can take rest periods when you want -- something that often may not be available to you if you're working on a building site (for example).

      Perhaps this suggests that companies be required to allow physical laborers more frequent breaks; E.G. Must allow for an interruption or reprieve in any physical labor no less often than at least once every 20 minutes no shorter than 5 minutes, and allow for a minimum total of 30 minutes mandatory rest time for every 90 minutes of physical labor; not including the time required to be allowed for lunch, and time required to be allowed for two 15 minute breaks per hour.

    40. Re:Correlation isn't causation by mysidia · · Score: 1

      1. The world is getting warmer 2. There are less pirates. Therefore 'global warming' must be caused by a lack of pirates.

      Clearly industry is killing off all the pirates through global warming which is destroying their native habitat --- which is cooler more predictable waters. OK... That, and stronger coastguards, militaries, and maritime courts in the 20th century that are strong enforcers of no-piracy laws.

      On the other hand there is STILL piracy out there. And the BSA, RIAA, and MPAA would strongly disagree with you about "There are less pirates.".... apparently there are more pirates than ever; they're just a different species evolved slightly so they're no longer concerned by warming conditions, and no longer hindered by having to take physical goods on the high seas.

    41. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

      But do they have parrots?

    42. Re: Correlation isn't causation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My poop smells like roses!

    43. Re:Correlation isn't causation by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      GP implies that they ate specifically vegan. That's misleading. Keto diet is the superset and more accurate.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  2. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who would have thought? Thank you, scientists!

  3. Journal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This was published in the journal of no shit Sherlock.

  4. All Physical Activity linked to Early Death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All Physical Activity linked to Early Death
    Because it was all about your diet and genetics
    And the time you spent exercising is technically lost time

  5. But bias is evident.. by thesupraman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Exactly.

    Not to mention the fact that many outside/active jobs are held by lower socio-economic groups, who also tend to die earlier for a wide range of reasons.
    I should check, but do they even adjust for people who die BECAUSE of the job? such jobs hold a much higher rate of job based death, which would
    skew the figures significantly.
    Plus, such people tend to be involved in more risky passtimes as well.

    There would seem to be SO many other factors immediately available, that caliming some mystical difference in the value of the associated exercise
    would be a little... odd perhaps?

    But, ah, here we go.

    Journal of Sports Medicine, basically claiming that sports exercise is good, and other exercise is bad.
    WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT.

    1. Re:But bias is evident.. by sjames · · Score: 1
      >p>It's not hard to imagine a difference though. When you're in the gym and you get winded, you pause for a moment. Do you know what happens if you do that at a physically demanding job? Some a-hole yells at you for slacking and tells you to get back to work or don't bother coming back.

      Also, when is the last time you put in 8 hours a day at the gym 5 days a week?

      Ever heard of over-training? Imagine doing that every week for 20 years.

      About the only people who come close who aren't poorly paid laborers are pro athletes. How many pro athletes can you think of who don't retire well before they turn 60? Now imagine if they couldn't afford to retire.

    2. Re:But bias is evident.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Roughnecks earn plenty of money.

    3. Re:But bias is evident.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is it in a nutshell. The people who work the most physically demanding jobs do so because they don't have the options for something else. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of master craftsmen who aren't averse to some hard physical work, but that's a often a job they love. I've spent plenty of time around people who do physically demanding work that is ultimately unrewarding and exhausting, leaving no real energy desire to pursue anything in their own time. Too often, it's extremely enticing to seek pleasure. Get fucked up. Drink. Take drugs. Life is teaching you that there are no long term rewards. I've been fucking amazed at how obese some guys manage to be in a job that should have them looking like Spartans.

      In short, they hate their working life. See nothing else on the horizon. And are determined to spend the little time, energy and money they have left over burning the candle at both ends. Everyone else is happy to turn a blind eye to this 'under' class - but if they ever decided to take what they want and bust heads en masse, most office weenies wouldn't be able to do much about it.

    4. Re:But bias is evident.. by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Have you read the paper? No you haven't. Because the paper raises all the issues you have. Only better, in more detail, with some facts and numbers. Because you know, *science*

      --
      ----- .sig: file not found
    5. Re:But bias is evident.. by Daralantan · · Score: 2

      Exactly.

      Not to mention the fact that many outside/active jobs are held by lower socio-economic groups, who also tend to die earlier for a wide range of reasons.

      This reminds me of when I worked at a warehouse several years ago. I'd place a lot of the bad physical toll of work on giving the workers extra stress of things such as: "YOU'RE NOT GETTING ENOUGH DONE. PEOPLE MADE MISTAKES. SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET FIRED," constantly at the job. People either stressed super hard, or didn't care because "Well they'll probably fire me sometime soon anyway so why should I worry?" and just gave up on everything. Plus most workers there tended to eat fast food every day for lunch and dinner... and most of them also frequently got blackout drunk on weekends (and occasionally on weekdays). I'd attribute way more health issues to extreme stress and poor nutrition rather than just the work being bad for them.

    6. Re: But bias is evident.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a bit of bs. I mean, working class is retarded, and that's why it is so subjugated. Ideally it should become extinct, and robots soon will make that happen.

    7. Re: But bias is evident.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. Most upper middle class or ruling class are there because their dad was a lawyer or architect or vice-president of something.
      They had a suit and tie at 8 and 10 year old and forever since while working class just balk at the price.

    8. Re:But bias is evident.. by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      Have you read the paper? No you haven't. Because the paper raises all the issues you have. Only better, in more detail, with some facts and numbers. Because you know, *science*

      That can't be! It's impossible to consider confounding factors until you publish the paper and receive Slashdot input.

    9. Re:But bias is evident.. by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      p>It's not hard to imagine a difference though. When you're in the gym and you get winded, you pause for a moment. Do you know what happens if you do that at a physically demanding job? Some a-hole yells at you for slacking and tells you to get back to work or don't bother coming back.

      I think you're on the right track here. The difference between getting injured on the job and injured doing something fun, notwithstanding the availability of worker's comp, is that at work, you feel pressured to return to your job, where you're likely to get re-injured if you return too soon, whereas if you injure yourself at the gym because you have a non-physical job, that injury won't keep you from working, and you wont feel pressured to go back to whatever sport or exercise caused the injury before it is fully healed.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  6. All things in moderation by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Those who exercise heavily, such as lots of running and weight lifting, even as just a hobby, also tend to die early.

    There's a sweet spot in the middle that is the ideal.

    1. Re: All things in moderation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation needed.

    2. Re: All things in moderation by Tablizer · · Score: 1
    3. Re:All things in moderation by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      There's a sweet spot in the middle that is the ideal.

      My sweet spot is on the couch.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:All things in moderation by BlueStrat · · Score: 2

      There's a sweet spot in the middle that is the ideal.

      My sweet spot is on the couch.

      Don't you let her sit in a chair, or anything? Patriarchist! :D

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    5. Re:All things in moderation by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      Don't you let her sit in a chair, or anything? Patriarchist! :D

      We were talking about sweet spots, not wet spots.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    6. Re: All things in moderation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, nah. That's not an epidemiolgical study correlating exercise with mortality rates, it just indicates a potential cause should such a link be found. Overall exercise is strongly correlated with markedly lower mortality rates https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12387651 and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3945246

      Is there a point at which there is too much of a good thing? Sure, but most people will never get close.

    7. Re: All things in moderation by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Overall exercise is strongly correlated with markedly lower mortality rates

      Nobody I know disputes that moderate exercise is better than no exercise.

      Is there a point at which there is too much of a good thing? Sure, but most people will never get close.

      Not necessarily. If your job or hobby is strenuous or excessive, it may trigger the down-sides of excess.

      I agree that more data and study is needed to really settle it. But, there are multiple hints that the benefits may roughly resemble a bell-shaped curve per exercise level and benefits.

    8. Re: All things in moderation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not necessarily. If your job or hobby is strenuous or excessive, it may trigger the down-sides of excess.

      I agree that more data and study is needed to really settle it. But, there are multiple hints that the benefits may roughly resemble a bell-shaped curve per exercise level and benefits.

      Agreed, but this wasn't really what you stated right at the start. You stated as a fact that people who exercised heavily - even those who did so as a hobby - tended to die early without really defining "heavily", quantifying the point of inflection, or the resulting change in death rate. This is at best a banal point and overstates the current state of knowledge in this area.

    9. Re:All things in moderation by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      My sweet spot is on the couch.

      Kind of hard to fit a couch into a casket.

    10. Re: All things in moderation by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Fine, you can put my poor documentation event on my permanent record.

    11. Re:All things in moderation by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      Kind of hard to fit a couch into a casket.

      My wife says she'll just put the couch and me onto a raft and float me out to sea while she shoots flaming arrows at it. I actually think that's kind of poetic, but I'm hoping she waits until I'm dead.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Makes sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The more risky a job is the less you will be paid because you likely will not survive to complain

  8. Digercise. by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Send you membership fee today and join digercise. The first exercise program that pays you to workout.

    For your $200 membership fee you will receive a high leverage earth moving device and the location of the nearest digercise exercise center (Located conveniently in the front parking lot of your nearby Home Depot or Lowes). Go there and wait, someone will pull up in a truck and offer you 'trafalga', which is digercise lingo for exercise. At the end of the day, you will receive cash...half of which is your to keep, send the other half to digercise.

    When signing up, be sure to ask about upgraded earth moving devices.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    1. Re:Digercise. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupid...Very Stupid

    2. Re:Digercise. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah he just wants any excuse to shit on Mexicans. He's one of the Deplorables.

  9. click-bait non-story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish the moderator that would tag "correlation is NOT causation" would be active again... This story is nothing more than click-bait... The authors have absolutely NO in-depth study's, or experience and do not site any correlating influences such as, poverty stricken being most prevalent in the physical jobs.. bad post slashdot...

  10. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... it might actually increase their risk of dying early.

    Translation: Work is (dis)stressful.

    No shit, Sherlock

  11. Not the Job the Work Enviroment by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    It is not the job that places workers under threat, in is the work environment. You can do the same job in different environments and the threat of injury will be much greater in one than the other. So maintenance in an existing building, in a controlled environment with low risk from the activity of other employers versus similar work on a building site, with high risk from other employees. Plenty of ways to die on a building site, a slip or trip or stumble goes from being an ouch in the office to death and dismemberment on the building site because of exposed risks.

    We all know the hardest work, produces the shittiest pay and only arseholes lie about it, the reason why, sheer unadulterated greed, government corruption, leaving those with lower IQs exposed to much greater risks for much less pay basically because the people who set it up that way are a pack of cunts.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    1. Re:Not the Job the Work Enviroment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      its supply and demand, anybody can be manual laborer with few hours of on-job training, not everybody can be doctor with few hours of on-job training

  12. Haven't we known this since Jack London? by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    I seem to remember him writing about this and how when he was a day laboring he drank hard to deal with the pain from getting beat up. Maybe I'm mixing up my American writers, but the point is this is hardly new information.

    It's a problem now because:

    a. We have the tech to keep these people alive past 55 if we want.

    b. Except for a few genetic freaks they can't work much past 55 but our retirement age is 67.

    c. We know we have the tech and if we don't use it we know we're letting them die 10-20 years younger.

    Doctors have been giving these folks phony disability papers because while they can technically function enough to work they're so much less productive nobody wants to hire them and they quiet frankly shouldn't be working in the shape their in. Even if they get jobs they're likely to hurt themselves and/or the people around them. But America being a "If you don't work you don't eat" kind of country there's not a lot of options. Thing is that's not gonna last. Sooner or later folks'll notice them "cheating" the system and come down on them (and their doctors) like a ton of bricks.

    The right thing to do is to recognize they've given 20-30 years of service to our civilization and take care of them, but try explaining that to the "Taxes are theft" wing of the right.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  13. Dubious by MrKaos · · Score: 2

    The study also fails to take into account workplace accidents

    Men do dangerous jobs. Men die doing dangerous jobs. Mining, construction, military. Men have higher rates of suicide, depression, alcoholism and smoking.

    the fact that researchers concluded that women aren’t really affected by this disparity may well be explained by the fact that most women are going to be working in moderately active roles (salons, shops etc) rather than working on building sites.

    So lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs.

    For now, lets file the whole "Exercise may only be beneficial when it’s done outside your job" into the "dubious" section and remember that when we were primates we moved around so much that we started walking on two legs.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:Dubious by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      Men do dangerous jobs.

      Women also do dangerous jobs:

      They live with men!

      I, for one, would not want to live with myself, and would consider it as dangerous.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Dubious by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      So lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs.

      You gotta be fucking kidding me:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One example does not a well-represented statistical sample make.

      Even if she is a giant fucking hero.

    4. Re:Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you get points for groveling?

    5. Re:Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Samples space { "blah" } = card(1).

      Confidence interval, ~0.

      Statistical relevance: 0

      You post: pointless.

    6. Re:Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you get blowjobs from other incel males out of your online trolling efforts, comrade?

    7. Re:Dubious by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      One example does not a well-represented statistical sample make.

      We weren't talking about statistical samples. Here was Mr Kaos' statement:

      "so lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs"

      Note, he did not say, "when an equal proportion of women are doing dangerous jobs" or, "when women are represented in dangerous jobs at the same rate as men".

      He said, "when women start doing dangerous jobs". Well, we have met that criterion, since women are indeed doing dangerous jobs. In fact, he mentioned three specific categories of job (none of which anyone on Slashdot has done, by the way). Those categories are, "Mining, construction, military." Well, there have been women in mining jobs since the 1800s, women in construction jobs since at least the 1920s and women in the military since forever. And I'm not talking about on some rare outliers, but a lot of women are in these jobs. Also in forestry, firefighting and other highly physically demanding jobs.

      You want to talk about dangerous? The US military forces are now 14% female. There have been over 9000 women who have earned combat badges in Iraq and Afghanistan. Around 170 have lost their fucking lives.

      So I don't want some turkey-neck fucking AC to come here waving his baby-dick around talking about how the sample size of women doing dangerous jobs is 1.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    8. Re:Dubious by MrKaos · · Score: 2

      So lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs.

      You gotta be fucking kidding me:

      No, I am not. For industrial death it's roughly 100:1, males:female.

      Here are the statistics for Gender differences in suicide as well. Roughly 4:1 M:F.

      You example is an outlier.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    9. Re:Dubious by thesupraman · · Score: 1

      So, you think pedantry is a good way to make a point?
      Interesting.

      BTW, its not really a very good example you know, being in the US military is NOT a particularly dangerous job, the probability of death is WAY below quite a lot of other jobs.
      However, there are women in those jobs also, just very VERY few.
      Lumberjack (forestry worker) and Fishermen (Fisherpeople? yes, I am taking the piss) are just about as bad as it gets for common jobs.
      Both are much MUCH worse than being in the US military.

      Yes, I know, The US has to consider anyone who shoots at a few 3rd world desperados a 'Hero', but really, get over it.

    10. Re:Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Combat isn't a dangerous job these days with drones, body armor, and armored vehicles. Farmers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, and industrial workers are more likely to die on the job than an average military member.

      Pathetic how you speak of logical technicalities and go on to an ad hominem filled rant that would get you a ban on any other website.

      Fact is men do more dangerous work than women. They are expected to. They are expected to die earlier so you can sit in your air conditioned office. What women do in comparison is largely irrelevant to the conversation. Even women that seek out combat roles die at a greatly reduced rate. Why is that? They are less combat effective and are sent on easy missions so people like you can feel better about your sexist valuing of some people more than others merely because you want to fuck them like you did to your students. If only #metoo existed 20 years ago we would not have to put up with you walking free.

    11. Re:Dubious by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      Men do dangerous jobs.

      Women also do dangerous jobs:

      They live with men!

      True, however it looks like it can be fatal for men too. I think we need to look objectively at the facts we have. Men are more disposable in society than women because they can't have babies. So maybe a little compassion and fact is something we can start to consider spreading around.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    12. Re:Dubious by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      So lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs.

      While I know this will vary by workplace, I can at least say that I've seen women be demanded way less in a warehouse job before. At the same position and pay, they were always given the less physically demanding jobs in the warehouse. If they didn't want to lift a box, then any other man could be called over and told to pick it up for them. Don't want to? Too bad, want to be written up for not doing your job? Also men were still expected to meet various production numbers while doing any physical labor that any female workers didn't want to do. But on that note, we did have one lady there who also worked at FedEx and she worked hard and never asked guys to lift anything unless it was actually too heavy - and she would HELP rather than just stand and watch when the guy came to lift for her. She worked her butt off all the time and I know FedEx required her and all other female to do that.... Our warehouse? Not so much...

    13. Re:Dubious by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      So lets talk about this disparity when women start doing dangerous jobs.

      You gotta be fucking kidding me:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Your micronceptions about statistics is so bad I feel you need to get a medal for it. Honestly, it's hard to be more wrong than you are right now.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    14. Re: Dubious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When are the SJWs and feminists going to demand that women be equally represented in work related deaths?

  14. Manual laborers will be classed as 1099'er now to by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Manual laborers will be classed as 1099'er now to get out the workers comp and under gop health bill will be the next pre existing condition

  15. well duh! by morethanapapercert · · Score: 2
    This is a meta-study, a little under 200,000 participants across 26 studies that specifically includes "all causes" which means it includes on-the-job accidents. Physically demanding jobs also tend to be physically risky jobs as well. How often does an office worker to work at heights or in cramped, enclosed spaces? White collar workers also only travel to and from work about twice a day. Your average plumber/electrician/contractor/etc is travelling to multiple places everyday. (and couriers even more so) A fact which dramatically increases the risk of being in a motor vehicle accident. (MVA's being one of the top if not *the* top cause of accidental death in industrialized countries.)

    I note that, in this study, they did attempt to control for age, smoker or non and socio-economic factors, but there is no mention of controlling for level of risk inherent in those jobs. A better follow up study would take that same data set and control for established accident rates within each occupation. I believe that once you control for the accident rate the plumber/electrician/contractor fields have, the difference in life expectancy will shrink or even disappear altogether.

    --
    I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
    1. Re:well duh! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "The study also fails to take into account workplace accidents"

  16. Marathons = bad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Marathons are really bad too. 2-3 miles is good for the heart. Anything greater damages the heart, just as bad as sitting on the couch all day.

    It's not about if it's at work, it's about overdoing it.

  17. Work sets you free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They got it right

  18. Cause of death by GrimSavant · · Score: 4, Informative

    It seems like an important detail missing from the article is what the causes of death are that increase for the more physically active jobs. Are they dying more from natural causes, or accidents or something else?

    An obvious hypothesis for a potential cause of early death would be if the higher physical activity jobs had much higher accident rates, since a lot of the jobs that come to mind involving a lot of physical activity have more obvious workplace dangers than someone working at a desk job. For example, it seems a lot more likely for a construction worker or a roof cleaner to fall to their death than it would for a programmer, and the path of causation would be due to the particular type of physical activity rather than the job being more physically active.

    This study seems to be really focused on the cardiovascular effects, but it seems like there could be lots of potentials for causation beyond the one they are focused on, and it's not obvious what their controls were. The generalized increased risk of mortality numbers seem like they may be less informative than focusing on more specific numbers for particular health risks and causes of death, though the overall numbers are useful for life insurance underwriters.

    1. Re:Cause of death by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "It seems like an important detail missing from the article is what the causes of death are"

      The paper explicitly looks at all-cause mortality (ie, it doesn't differentiate causes of death), and mentions that additional studies that do look at causes of death would be beneficial.

      The usual problem is that as you start dividing populations up by more factors, the population groups get a bit small for valid statistics. Remember they've already removed a range on confounding factors to find populations who differ only by the type of work they do. Remember also this is a meta-analysis and they are reliant on the original underlying studies recording mortality in ways that are both adequately detailed, and reasonably consistent across studies.

      --
      ----- .sig: file not found
    2. Re:Cause of death by GrimSavant · · Score: 1

      At the top of the page it says it is a meta analysis of 193696 people, and in the follow ups on deaths there were 29639 deaths, so that seems like that should be large enough samples to not run into the sample size issues that you mention as long as you don't get too far into the weeds with subdividing the populations. Here are the leading causes of death for the general US population, presumably the early mortality in this study would have a different profile than that of the general population, but even for the general population accidents constitute over 5% of overall mortality. Cardiovascular issues are much higher proportion of overall mortality than that, and the study seems to want to focus on those issues so comparing rates on that for the different levels of physical activity tested by the study seems like a much more informative path for teasing out paths of causation than just the general mortality numbers.

      The bigger issue seems to be that they are mashing a bunch of different studies together, which is beyond my basic level of statistical modeling but sounds like could cause problems. To be fair, I'm not saying that this study is "bad" just from the speed read of some random asshole on the internet, but scientific journalism tends to draw way more conclusions than is merited by the scientific studies that they cover, and there are quite a few issues that make the idea being sold that physical activity in the job is bad compared to recreational physical activity being good less conclusive than as presented.

  19. But there may be a cause... by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    Correlation isn't causation.

    Absolutely true but if you RTFA (I know that's not expected!) right at the end they suggest a reason which is that the jobs they looked at require 8 hours of continuous activity vs. the 0.5 hours or so of typical leisure activity. Apparently, "continuous activity works to actually inhibit our cardiovascular system, not improve it" according to the article. Of course, this possible cause will require more data to establish.

  20. Really? by cyberzephyr · · Score: 2

    Doh!

    A quote from Homer Simpson.

    --
    I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
  21. Drums of toxic waste by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    might not be good for a worker who is "fit" and "outside" all day...
    Wondering around all day fixing pipes that leak toxic chemicals might not be good all day.
    Teaching wealthy people how to surf, climb a mountain, ride a horse would rank as?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  22. Fake News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Metro is fake news

  23. News flash! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Water is wet! News at 11.

  24. Newsflash! Dangerous jobs ... by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    ... are dangerous.

    This scientific insight was brought to you by the Captain Obvious research institute.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  25. Now I believe in Science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used to think scientits were a bunch of arrogant pricks who spent all day writing grant proposals to get money to conduct useless and mostly obvious studies. Then the Scientists came out with this whopper of a thesis...
          You have totally changed my mind about the value of science. I'm sure others like me who used to question global warming, did not vaccinate their children, and believed the Earth was flat just to spite Scientific dogma, will now become ardent converts to the power of Science.

    This Scientific discovery, I am sure it will not be eclipsed anytime soon, or at least not till Scientist conduct their new multimillion dollar Scientific study when they determine that people who live in warm sunny climates are happier than people who live in climate where it is wet and miserable all year long.

  26. Really folks? by Maelwryth · · Score: 1

    Let us state this simple. Dealing with reality leads to real consequences. This is why violence works and why people who do physical jobs die earlier.

    --
    I reserve the write to mangle english.
  27. Correction of university name by Jahid · · Score: 3, Informative

    The university in question is the "Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam" or "VU Amsterdam", so not "UV" as the summary now says. Specifically it's the "VU University Medical Center" (https://www.vumc.com/).

  28. ebill payments by rockshahrukh86 · · Score: 0

    Dear Consumers Here we are going to provide all guidelines which relates to TNEB Online Payment and Total Preface regarding Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. TNEB Online Payment TNEB bill status MSEB bill payment KSEB bill payment IGL bill payment

  29. As said in the article by DrYak · · Score: 2

    From the abstract :

    The results of this review indicate detrimental health consequences associated with high level occupational physical activity in men, even when adjusting for relevant factors (such as leisure time physical activity). These findings suggest that research and physical activity guidelines may differentiate between occupational and leisure time physical activity.

    They directly state that they have observed "association".
    They are only suggesting that physical activity guideline should take into account leisure vs. occupation.

    Plus, the hypothesis evoked here on /. (exposure to toxic chemimcals) and the hypothesis from the summary (more trivially, less rest whenever wanted) both boil down to "in occupation, the physical exercie cannot be done while removing negatively implacting factors, unlike when doing it as a leisure".

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  30. Correlation means "study this further" by sjbe · · Score: 2

    Correlation isn't causation.

    Not always but it certainly can be. If two things correlate strongly enough in many cases there is a causal relationship there too. You never have a causal relationship without a correlation as well. Smoking both correlates with and causes cancer. Correlation CAN indicate causation - just not always and the correlation is typically the evidence we see first. It's an indicator that further study is possibly warranted to see if a causal relationship exists. We knew there was a correlation between smoking and cancer which led us to the research to determine that yes indeed there was a causal relationship there. Causation always is correlation but correlation isn't always causation.

    Many physically demanding jobs (fireman, mechanic, building trades) involve more exposure to toxic chemicals than other jobs.

    There also is a notably higher risk of accidents. Frankly it's not at all surprising that physically demanding jobs result in a lower life expectancy. That's merely a confirmation of what we generally already knew or suspected. The real question is why does this relationship exist? Is it as simple as some toxic exposure and accidents or is something more subtle in play here?

  31. their lifestyle by sad_ · · Score: 1

    have you seen the lifestyle of most of these physically demanding job workers? it is hardly healty and even though they get a lot of excersize most of them also don't look very muscular or thin.

    --
    On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
    1. Re:their lifestyle by PPH · · Score: 1

      don't look very muscular or thin.

      Stop using GQ models as a benchmark for fitness.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  32. Over training isn't what you think by sjbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ever heard of over-training? Imagine doing that every week for 20 years.

    Having experienced over-training personally (I used to be a D1 college athlete) I can state with confidence that very few jobs even among physically demanding ones require the sort of output that would result in over-training symptoms. Stress injuries and wear and tear yes. Extreme fatigue even. But over training requires more output than most people ever will get to even in a physically demanding job. It requires exceeding your body's ability to recover. If you are able to do a job for 20 years you are not in an over-trained condition - you would be in the hospital LONG before then. I understand where you are going with your argument and you are quite right that some jobs can take a tremendous physical toll on the body so I can see what you mean. But rarely in the form of what might be called over-training if we are being technically correct. There are exceptions of course but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

    About the only people who come close who aren't poorly paid laborers are pro athletes. How many pro athletes can you think of who don't retire well before they turn 60?

    Terrible analogy. Pro athletes typically retire for one of two reasons. 1) Wear and tear on the body including injuries or 2) Declining physical abilities due to age. A pro athlete is one of the very best in the world at their chosen sport and even the best and most fortunate of them aren't going to be able to play at the highest levels much beyond age 40 in any sport and some sports retirement comes much earlier. The reason is that while they might still be very good compared to you or me, their bodies simply cannot perform at the high level necessary to be among the very best in the world. They slow down physically and simply get passed by younger fresher athletes. Age does that to all of us sooner or later. In a skilled trades or other physically demanding jobs you do not need to be among the peak physical performers in the world to still be economically valuable to your company.

    1. Re:Over training isn't what you think by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Terrible analogy. Pro athletes typically retire for one of two reasons. 1) Wear and tear on the body including injuries or 2) Declining physical abilities due to age. A pro athlete is one of the very best in the world at their chosen sport and even the best and most fortunate of them aren't going to be able to play at the highest levels much beyond age 40 in any sport and some sports retirement comes much earlier.

      Many of the latter actually continue as casual players/athletes on a hobby basis, their "retirement" is just the end of their professional career and the extreme training to stay at the top. Nobody cares if Maradona or Pelé still kicks a ball or two with a few old buddies or Björn Borg still can swing a tennis racket. I guess it's less for contact sports like boxing or American football, but it's ridiculous to think a bicycle rider will have dropped out entirely just because he's not on Tour de France anymore.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:Over training isn't what you think by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Ever heard of over-training? Imagine doing that every week for 20 years.

      Having experienced over-training personally (I used to be a D1 college athlete) I can state with confidence that very few jobs even among physically demanding ones require the sort of output that would result in over-training symptoms. Stress injuries and wear and tear yes. Extreme fatigue even. But over training requires more output than most people ever will get to even in a physically demanding job.

      I dunno. As a young man I helped out around a friend's farm. I also played hockey. Now let's talk about baling hay in the barn after harvest. Two different extreme activities.using different parts of the body. But you don't get breaks other than climbing up to the loft after your shoulders scream at you from pitching bales for a half hour and the cruelty of having to pitch higher as the hay level goes up. Then you bake in the heat trapped in the barn, and get covered with chaff.

      Three games a week plus practice plus daily off ice workouts in Hockey at an older age and although it was work, I got to have a minute on, two minutes off to recover. It was a whole different world than if I stopped for a break while baling hay.

      There's a reason why us 18 year old's baled the loft while the farmer and the other older guys did the driving. It would kill you soon if you did that for too many years.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    3. Re:Over training isn't what you think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Insanely out of touch. Comparing being a college athlete with all the privilege and motivation that comes with it and the grinding, no horizon, zero hope, and demands of hard labor jobs.

      Disgusting that you received any mod points at all. It's clear how immersed in their bubble so many people on slashdot are.

    4. Re: Over training isn't what you think by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      try out sheep shearing sometime.

    5. Re:Over training isn't what you think by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · · Score: 1

      This is true for a lot of activities, and even within my family I have an example that matches yours. I have an aunt who at her peak was the #3 ranked female cyclist in the US, now almost 40 years later she is still a better cyclist than I could hope to be.

      --
      Time to offend someone
    6. Re:Over training isn't what you think by sjames · · Score: 1

      It requires exceeding your body's ability to recover.

      Many laborors experience that. They start out OK on Monday, but by Friday they;re waking up in pain and it doesn't really go away. They get to recover a bit over the weekend, but by the next Monday, they can't really be said to have fully recovered, just mostly recovered.

      As for pro athletes, they generally retire before their peak performance falls off. They can be as good as they ever were at times, but they simply cannot do it day after day for any length of time any more.

  33. All things in moderation... including moderation by sjbe · · Score: 2

    Those who exercise heavily, such as lots of running and weight lifting, even as just a hobby, also tend to die early.

    I'm sure you tell yourself that every time you need an excuse to not go to the gym too.

  34. Where's #metoo on workplace injuries? by Subm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here's another place men dominate in the workplace: on the job injuries and deaths. Where's the #metoo movement on equality there?

    I don't know why men don't start a #metoo movement around injury and death prone jobs. And jobs that are migrant, outdoor, physically demanding, and other things that make them more grueling.

    #injuredtoo

    1. Re:Where's #metoo on workplace injuries? by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 1

      maybe #notyoutoo

    2. Re:Where's #metoo on workplace injuries? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 0

      The moral hierarchy of victimhood culture places entire groups of people at the top or bottom based on the whole groupâ(TM)s victimhood status. And while itâ(TM)s not always clear which groups qualify, Jonathan Haidt identifies seven groups that are currently treated as sacred: people of color, women, LGBTs, Latinos, Native Americans, people with disabilities, and Muslims. Under this schema even many minority groups, such as Evangelical Christians, fail to qualify, and any discrimination against them is ignored or celebrated.

      Understanding Victim Culture

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Where's #metoo on workplace injuries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think you know what the word "hierarchy" means. If it's not clear who qualifies to be in what tier, then it's not a hierarchy. Also, the only people who think "victimhood culture" is a real thing are racists, misogynists, or whiny WASP snowflakes.

      As for your imaginary schema exclusions, when's the last time you've seen or heard of an evangelical getting discriminated against based on his religion? Oh right, never. And no, calling it a "holiday party" is not discrimination.

      When's the last time an unarmed man got shot for breathing while black? Dunno, probably ten minutes ago. A white guy on a plane can start screaming when his phone catches fire, and the flight attendant asks what she can do to help. Try that with a headscarf on and see how fast your ass gets tazed.

      tl;dr GTFO

    4. Re:Where's #metoo on workplace injuries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Men have an entire government agency for that it's called OSHA. Most of them are happy to be complict in their employers abuse though because they are tough guys.

  35. Military safe? by sjbe · · Score: 1

    BTW, its not really a very good example you know, being in the US military is NOT a particularly dangerous job, the probability of death is WAY below quite a lot of other jobs.

    That depends strongly on exactly what job you are doing in the military. Desk job at the pentagon? Yeah probably pretty safe. Combat engineer stationed in rural Afganistan? Not so much. If you think it is a safe job I recommend you spend a little time hanging around a VA hospital.

    Just because some jobs are more dangerous on average doesn't mean serving in the military is safe compared to my current cushy desk job.

    Lumberjack (forestry worker) and Fishermen (Fisherpeople? yes, I am taking the piss) are just about as bad as it gets for common jobs.
    Both are much MUCH worse than being in the US military.

    Not when the military is actually doing what they are hired to do. Combat has a funny way of upping the casualty count substantially in a very short time period.

  36. Gary Taubes suggests reasons in book on obesity by swb · · Score: 1

    Taubes uses a couple of well-studied populations of manual laborers (one group I think includes oil field workers) who have high levels of obesity in trying to disassociate physical activity from weight gain. Taubes primary thesis is that excessive carbohydrate consumption leads to obesity.

    Since most physical labor is done by low-income people and carbohydrate foods are cheaper than meats and high-fat/protein sources, it seems to be pretty easy to connect the dots. Being poor leads to a diet which contributes to obesity and all its health problems and physical activity doesn't help.

    If Taubes' carbohydrate/obesity thesis is right, then being poor and working hard might make health worse because it may promote a greater appetite which gets satisfied with food that makes obesity worse, not better.

    Taubes' has other criticisms and examples of high levels of physical activity that doesn't involve starvation not really changing obesity, too, so he'd probably consider this a minor point or complicated by other factors -- like poor people who have to do hard work eating more carbs not out of hunger (since their labor doesn't burn that many calories) but out of boredom or frustration of a life filled with hard work and poverty.

    There are probably examples of hard work/lean populations but these may be complicated by food scarcity. Starving a hard working population isn't really valuable to either the labor effort or method of weight loss that will gain many adherents.

  37. stop opression of man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since we all know who do almost all physically difficult and dirty jobs - I am in my right to ask TO STOP OPPRESSING MAN.
    Since in UK more females have university degrees, we need to force females into building site jobs.

  38. Sigh. by ledow · · Score: 1

    Not being active is bad for your health.

    But nobody has ever been able to prove that being MORE active than normal is somehow magically BETTER than just being active.

    Same for everything - not having enough vitamins is bad (malnutrition). But eating more of them than a normal person requires doesn't turn you into Superman.

    And it works in reverse. Eating too many fatty foods is bad. But it doesn't mean that cutting out fatty foods entirely is any better than just eating sensibly.

    Moderation in everything.

  39. Clueless about combat by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Combat isn't a dangerous job these days with drones, body armor, and armored vehicles.

    So says the anonymous coward who has never been anywhere near a real battlefield in his pathetic life. Probably played a lot of HALO though so he's bad ass and qualified to comment on how not dangerous combat is.

    Pro-tip: Body armor won't save your ass from an artillery shell or a bomb. Most combat isn't done by drones. Armored vehicles aren't all that hard to kill along with their occupants.

    Farmers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, and industrial workers are more likely to die on the job than an average military member.

    You do realize that statement becomes wildly, ludicrously, (almost) humorously false during combat right? You know, the activity that the military is actually built and trained to do? Being in the military is mostly boring tedium but occasionally it becomes the most dangerous occupation imaginable.

    1. Re:Clueless about combat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being in the military is mostly boring tedium but occasionally it becomes the most dangerous occupation imaginable.

      The same can be said of being a press operator when the brakes fail and 300 tons are rushing towards your sternum.

      Look at the numbers if you believe in science and know you are wrong. Piss off if you don't.

      Comparing the safest parts of one profession with the most dangerous parts of another shows you have no critical thinking skills and only emotional agenda.

    2. Re:Clueless about combat by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Farmers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, and industrial workers are more likely to die on the job than an average military member.

      You do realize that statement becomes wildly, ludicrously, (almost) humorously false during combat right?

      Well the US haven't fought any real military opposition since the Vietnam war and used a lot of local cannon fodder on the ground so the average military member has been pretty safe. If I tally the combat deaths listed here from 1980 to today I get 6229 or ~130/year. This site says the US has ~1.3 million active duty military personnel. So the risk of dying "on the job" is currently around 0.01%/year, obviously quite unevenly distributed but still ridiculously low for being the military. Of course if some real powder keg goes off those statistics could go out the window real fast...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Clueless about combat by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Well, that whole 'tip of the spear' thing is kind of true though. The vast majority of personnel are involved in maintenance, logistics, comms, etc no?

      The statement about relative risk for servicemen pretty much does hold, on average.

      Saying that combat isn't really risky.. yeah he lost the plot there.

  40. Read the paper by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. It's a meta-study, so they grabbed data from a variety of other studies, ie the data had to be "massaged" to get it to line up properly
    2. It only found a difference in men, not women, which is odd
    3. There were studies they rejected that showed there was no difference, or an inverse correlation
    4. It found an 18% difference, which...
    5. Isn't clear if it's significant or not, since they list their confidence interval but not their p-value.

    So, yeah, not a slam-dunk finding here.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
    1. Re:Read the paper by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Most health studies shouldn't be considered statistically significant unless you see something like a factor of 2 or 100%.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Read the paper by William+Baric · · Score: 2

      2. It only found a difference in men, not women, which is odd

      Women don't do physically demanding jobs, at least not at the level of men.

    3. Re:Read the paper by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      2. It only found a difference in men, not women, which is odd

      Women don't do physically demanding jobs, at least not at the level of men.

      Or they are too smart to kill themselves doing them.

    4. Re:Read the paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, that'll be it - women are smarter than men - obviously.
      Why aren't they beating men at chess then?

    5. Re:Read the paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sure the paper still has a leg up on some slashdorks SWAG.

      Seriously, folks, it's not a slam dunk but this is also not a dichotomy. Can we please stop treating every single thing in such a manner?

    6. Re:Read the paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or they are too smart to kill themselves doing them.

      Even when men and women are nominally doing the same job, the physically-demanding tasks are usually assigned primarily to the men. In nursing, for example, lifting a comatose patient or wrangling a combative one is likely to be done by the male nurses only. Women are "too smart" to do such things in the sense that they're generally willing to take advantage of social prejudices to avoid them, although a few of the more egalitarian ones will volunteer to do them anyway.

  41. The opposite is true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would be willing to wager it's actually lifestyle factors outside of work that gave the results, as it's a fact that hard exercise actually has the opposite effect as we age if lifestyle factors are favorable. This is also born out by simpler times when most people were agrarian and recreational drugs, sitting on your ass playing Fortnite, and Del Taco didn't exist. Sorry, millennials, but you are going to have to work. If you don't, the people that actually *do* work are going to dust your Wall-E-esque jelly asses.

    1. Re:The opposite is true by PPH · · Score: 1

      I agree. Sort of. Reasonable levels of physical activity tend to improve one's cardiovascular fitness and lifespan. But many of the jobs providing such activity also involve some level of danger. Linemen getting electrocuted or falling off poles. Roofers falling off roofs. Farmers getting pulled into combine harvesters. These sorts of things can mess with the statistics.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  42. Internet Explorer linked to murder by raymorris · · Score: 1

    This graph demonstrates that as fewer people were subjected to the frustrations of Internet Explorer, murder rates fell significantly:

    https://gizmodo.com/5977989/in...

    Or it might just be that the rate of IE use fell, and completely separately, murder rate also fell at the time, with no relationship between the two. They are correlated (more murders happened when people used IE), but that doesn't prove that IE causes murder.

    Frequently, two correlated facts are caused directly or indirectly, by some third fact that causes both. As a dumb example, driving to work is correlated with drinking coffee - when people drink coffee, they often drive to work. Coffee doesn't cause the commute, both are caused by morning.

    1. Re:Internet Explorer linked to murder by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Or it might just be that the rate of IE use fell, and completely separately, murder rate also fell at the time, with no relationship between the two. They are correlated (more murders happened when people used IE), but that doesn't prove that IE causes murder.

      Spoken like someone who has never tried to make a sufficiently complex web app work with IE. Trust me, this is not a false correlation. Every time I deal with IE, I want to wring someone's neck.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  43. Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject & letting you f yourself dumbass https://it.slashdot.org/commen... you inferior moron.

    * Don't try "patronize" me BOY when I can show you are less than ZERO fucker... easily.

    APK

    P.S.=> Your DIM brains are blatantly inferior evidenced by your FAKE NAMES online for FAKE lives of being "ne'er-do-well" scum having the AUDACITY to even TRY "F" w/ me & ones like you you INFERIOR swine as I cast PEARLS before SWINE like you... apk

    1. Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      * Don't try "patronize" me BOY when I can show you are less than ZERO fucker... easily.

      You are exceptionally boring.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      i try to mod APK posts as funny, because they kind of are. but sadly i already posted in the thread, so missed out on this opportunity :( hopefully someone else can fill in though.

    3. Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find your ideas fascinating, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    4. Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1
      Is it really APK though? This particular AC just seems like someone trying to withdraw form Meth and Percoset at the same time.

      Anyhow, yes, it can be funny, anlthough I keep trying to get him to up his game.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    5. Re:Ol Olsoc projecting his problems? Yes by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, it is a bit like poking a mentally handicapped bear through the bars in his zoo cage.

  44. Recovery time by sjbe · · Score: 2

    Three games a week plus practice plus daily off ice workouts in Hockey at an older age and although it was work, I got to have a minute on, two minutes off to recover. It was a whole different world than if I stopped for a break while baling hay.

    The physical demands of the activity at the level you participated obviously were not enough to surpass your ability to recover. When you over-train you literally experience a decline in your ability to perform. You might be more prone to injuries but what's really happening is that your body simply cannot rebuild from the stresses faster than you are piling them on. Do this for long enough and stuff starts to break. It's not just that an activity is hard - you have to do it for an extended period of time beyond your physical capacity to recover between sessions of that activity. Most people will quit an activity or slow down long before they get to the point where over-training becomes an issue.

    It's not about having a minute or two to recover. It's about being able to recover before the next day's practice. That is dependent on the intensity, frequency, and duration of your workouts or work. Everyone has a limit though few people ever really get close to theirs.

    There's a reason why us 18 year old's baled the loft while the farmer and the other older guys did the driving. It would kill you soon if you did that for too many years.

    That's because the capacity of an 18yo to recover from physical stresses is (generally) measurably greater than that of someone who is significantly older. I'm approaching 50 and workouts that I used to recover from in a few hours now might take me two days to recover from. Normal aging effects. It would be possible for the older guys to experience over-training if they continued to do it at a pace beyond their capacity for an extended time but more likely they would just slow to a pace they could manage.

  45. Correlation/Causation? by Stinky+Cheese+Man · · Score: 1

    Of course I couldn't be bothered to Read The Fine Article, but did they consider the possibility that people who have to do manual labor for a living generally have a less healthy lifestyle than knowledge workers?

  46. Film at 11... by johnwfran · · Score: 1

    Hard physical labor can decrease your life span. Thanks, Defenders of the Obvious.

  47. Types of exercise vs. work by TeknoHog · · Score: 2

    I'm sure everyone here has done some kind of physical work, such as moving furniture, and a lot of people have been involved in things like building a house. So it should be quite obvious how different the physical actions are compared to exercise for health and fitness. There are high static loads in uncomfortable positions, vs. smooth repetitions of smaller weights you might do at the gym. There's usually very little aerobic exercise, though you generally need some level of aerobic fitness to cope with the work.

    With exercise, you can forget about getting $project done, and focus on your body. It's a very different goal so obviously you'll do things differently.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  48. Our right wing corporate media by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    squashes such things with the help of the same right wing government. Remember Occupy Wall street? Parts of the patriot act were used to quash it and the media didn't say a peep. Our media leans left on a few social issues but when it comes to money and the economy they're hard, hard right. Good luck getting any coverage of anti-union behavior out of them either while you're at it.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  49. Captain obvious? by TJHook3r · · Score: 1

    Um, is this obvious or just me? Of course people die early when they have physically demanding jobs - what did they think their aching bodies were telling them? Exercise really isn't all that great past a certain point.

  50. So design your life. by pubwvj · · Score: 1

    Design your life to fit your goals for fitness (physical, emotional, mental, social). I designed my life so I have some periods of rest and some periods of intense physical activity and some periods of more gentle physical activity. Rinse and repeat each day, each week and around the seasons. It keeps me healthy and I suspect I'll be in the longer lived group.

    But, there's another factor - ancestors. Pick them well.

  51. So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...the Game Grumps are going to live forever, then?

  52. LOL! MOMMY HELP ME (golden wine)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hohohohoho see the CLASSIC proof of that here soyboys as you DRINK the golden wine https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... straight from MY tap (of GOLDEN piss), all natural ingredients, naturally filtered (of ME pissing right into your shitbag mouths & funniest part is, you help me DO it - you LIKE it, lol!).

    Do you LIKE the taste? Obviously yes - just like folks like my hosts engine, anything I put out, even piss, is GOOD (unlike "your kind").

    Above all else though? Hey - MOMMY LOVES YOU!

    APK

    P.S.=> Hahahahaha (I think this is the BEST overall letting you SHEMALE soyboys destroy yourselves for GOLD (ask SuckerBERG about that - he's the expert as is all his kind are - heading into ZylonB & Furnace time again judging by what's happening - the PRICE of it is that, always, they don't learn)... apk

    1. Re:LOL! MOMMY HELP ME (golden wine)... apk by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      Ahh, the old Urolagnia approach. I can only give it 2 stars (out of 10) Try again Sparkle. I'm only trying to help you improve yourself. So get creative!

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  53. You = The "SiDeWaLk-ShRiNk of /.", lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject (lol) & the viral hit by "The SoyBoyz": ''If you're going to TransManCisco? Be sure you wear your jimmyhats + bring Preparation H there. If you're going, to TransManCisco... You're going to meet a lot of transtesticle monsters and soyboy not men there. All across the nation: Surgical sawblade vibrations! Surgeons in motion, Sawing peckers + ball off tossing them into the SF Bay Ocean...'

    * They're playing YOUR SONG again - hahahaha classic!

    (Only way "your kind" would EVER get any notice &/or notoriety...)

    APK

    P.S.=> Quit projecting your own mental issues onto me... apk

  54. Water is wet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In other news water is wet.