It’s no surprise that certain jobs create more stress than others. Some jobs keep you active, while others keep you in a sedentary state. A recent study found the jobs linked to worse health than others.
Jobs Linked to Worse Health
The study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that truck drivers and social service workers are the top two professions that most likely to be the least healthy.
Researchers analyzed more than 66,000 employed participants from 21 states, covering 22 professions. In order to fully measure how heart-healthy each person was, the researchers used the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Life’s Simple Seven ideal heart-healthy characteristics and habits.
- Smoking
- Physically Active
- Normal Blood Pressure
- Normal Blood Glucose
- Ideal Weight
- Healthy Diet
- Normal Cholesterol Levels
Results
Out of 66,000 employees, the researchers found that only 3.5% of them met all seven of the Life’s Simple Seven criteria. These employees and those who met six of the seven criteria had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.
Another statistic they found was that 9.6% of the participants only met two or lower of the Simple Seven criteria. From this information, the researchers found the two jobs linked to worse health–transportation and community employees and social services workers.
14.6% of community employees and social services employees and 14.3% of transportation workers aligned with two or fewer of the Simple Seven outline.
Researchers analyzed each of the seven habits on their own and found that transportation and material moving jobs got the least amount of physical activity and were the least likely to have a normal BMI or blood pressure levels.
Furthermore, the study showed that food servers and food preparation employees had a higher tendency to smoke, computer and math employees tended to not have an ideal cholesterol score, and personal care and service employees had a higher tendency to not have an ideal blood glucose level.
However, other occupations proved to be healthier and more heart-healthy. Participants that had farming, fishing, forestry, or arts/design and entertainment careers saw only a 5%-5.9% average for falling into two or fewer Simple Seven metrics.
Although farming, fishing, and forestry jobs seemed to be less likely to be unhealthy, they reported an 84.3% of workers did not maintain an ideal diet.
Conclusion
Though these occupations have certain statistics, individuals can still create better habits for themselves through diet and exercise. Modifying these two components to be more heart-healthy can significantly reduce the risk of high blood pressure or heart disease.
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Regardless of having one of the jobs linked to worse health, it is still possible to achieve a healthy lifestyle!
Resource
http://www.livescience.com/55735-worst-jobs-heart-health.html