US IT Workers Becoming Fatties

By Humphrey Cheung
published

 

Chicago (IL) - American IT workers have horrible eating habits and a new survey shows that most of them gain weight. Careerbuilder.com polled 7700 workers from Feb 11 to March 13 and found that 34 percent said they gained more than 10 pounds while 17% went all out and gained 20 pounds while working in the field.

Of course eating habits had a huge impact on this and 38% said they ate out at least twice a week with co-workers. Sadly, 11% said they buy their lunch from vending machines at least once a week.

I used to work at NetZero (remember those guys) during the height of the Dot-Com Boom and trust me I know what these guys are going through. We had vending machines stocked to the brim with chips, cookies and soda. Everything was free, so all you had to do was punch a bunch of buttons and your horribly unhealthy lunch would appear.

Read more ... careerbuilder (opens in new tab)

Humphrey Cheung
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gm0n3y
    When I graduated from college I went from being 175lbs with about 12% body fat to 210lbs with 27% body fat in about 2 years. This industry sucks for staying healthy. For me it wasn't even the food, its the sedentary nature of the job. Now I bike to work every day and I'm down to 193lbs and I'm guessing 19-20% body fat, but it takes a lot of work to even stay at that.
    Reply
  • xxsk8er101xx
    I worked for a company that had a built in gym no one there was over weight in IT or any other department. Besides the few that chose it or has medical conditions.

    To fight this the government should offer grants and tax right offs to build a gym or offer gym discounts to their choice of the local gym.
    Reply
  • cottonball
    It's not the IT feild, it's just the easy route is almost always the unhealthy route. Any job that doesn't require you to be very active, requires you to use personal effort to stay in shape. So tired of people blaming their job. If they were truely concerned they would hit the gym or go jogging around their neighborhood or do as gn0n3y does and bike to and from work.

    It's not the job it's the lazy people blaming the job.
    Reply
  • Jaevric
    Seriously, Americans in general are getting to be fat. I spend 8 hours a day sitting at a desk typing on a computer or talking on a phone, then I go home and read a book or get on the computer. Eating habits don't help, since I at least always feel like eating out at work just to get out of the office. I'm not a fatty but I've definitely put on more weight than I needed to; or, rather, it's all around my midsection instead of somewhere useful.

    Fortunately my next apartment complex is going to have a gym and I'm going to force myself to use the thing, if only so I can also use the pool without being embarassed.
    Reply
  • gm0n3y
    It certainly isn't only in the IT industry, but in every type of desk job. People are lazy (myself included much of the time), we need to get outside and be active. The government needs to heavily subsidize sports and gyms as well as provide a lot more funding for parks and hiking trails. This would pay off economically in greatly reducing the cost of health care (at least in countries with universal health care) and less missed work, less workplace injuries, increases productivity, etc.

    I do recall some law put before the (Canadian) government a few years ago that would have allowed all expenses related to fitness to be written off of your taxes. That would be a great start.
    Reply
  • christian summer
    the government doesnt need to spend a cent on this stuff...people should care enough about themselves to use a little self control...

    i started college in 1998 at 135 pounds, 29" waist...i went into the tech industry and got up to 245 wearing 44"s...in jan of 2006 (height of my weight) i started boxing to get back into shape...now i hover around 160 pounds 32"'s...i walk everywhere but i dont work out anymore...i do have to tell myself to stop eating...its not hard...

    -c
    Reply
  • gm0n3y
    I hate the American idea that the government should never spend any money on anything except defense and police. That pisses me off, I'd rather have a weak military and better social services.
    Reply
  • Badfinger
    Ban bad foods... Donuts, all candy, french fries, buffalo wings, etc etc.
    That might save me, LOL!

    Reply