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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.
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.
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.
"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.
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