How Office Work Makes You Gain Weight

If you have a job where you are on your feet all day and you are running from one place to the next for your entire eight hour shift, including your lunch break, this article may not apply to you. However, for the rest of us this article is humorously true. For those of us with an office job, it is nearly impossible to do anything but sit at our desks all day long! I am going to tell you how working in an office can make you fat!

So the first and most obvious point that I will make and alluded to earlier is that when you have an office job you sit on your butt all day long and have very little activity. This is even more so if you have an operators type job where you are also tied to a phone. Not only are you not burning calories by simply holding your body weight up when you are standing but your entire body, except your fingers and your mouth are still. You cannot possibly burn any calories sitting all day. Likewise many offices are small in size and even if you take a trip to the restroom two or three times a day, it is not likely that you are getting exercise there as the distance you go is likely to be only a few feet! As a result, you are not only not burning any calories all day but you are actually getting less exercise because your body does not have to work at all when you sit. This can definitely lead to weight gain, especially if you are in this type of job for any long period of time.

Another reason that office work makes you gain weight is the notorious cubicle with the ever full candy jar. Every office has at least one employee that will keep a candy jar stocked with chocolate, candy and gum. This candy jar is the center of attention. It gives someone a break when they get up to have a piece and gives them a chance to socialize with their fellow coworkers. Even if you only have one or two pieces a day these extra calories always end up on your thighs. These extra calories, coupled with a lack of exercise are another contributing factor to workplace weight gain.

Many offices tend to have parties for the holidays and for employee birthdays and for employee anniversaries and many many other occasions. All of these parties mean lots of homemade goodies are around. You cannot have a birthday celebration without having a cake. You cannot have a holiday party without having some good food, and of course there are always leftovers that you nibble on throughout the day. Having all these extra times to eat in your workday leads to extra calories ingested and yet another way to gain weight at work.

How about stress? We all know that being stressed can lead to weight gain. Whether it is just the way your body reacts to stress or if you are an emotional eater, stress can cause you to gain a significant amount of weight in a short period of time. Work issues are one of the number one causes of stress. So if you are stressed all day long at your job and there is a candy jar nearby and it is your coworker's birthday then you know you will be eating more than you should and that leads to weight gain.

I have listed just a few ways that the work place environment contributes to weight gain and I am certain there are numerous more ways that working in an office can make you gain weight. The important thing to do is to control your environment as much as you can. Make an effort to get up from your desk every hour or so. Take the long way around to the bathroom, or the candy jar if you must have a piece. It is ok to say no when cake is being offered. Take a lap around the office building on your lunch break, and if none of these little solutions help, well you are in good company. Millions of Americans work at desk jobs and millions of Americans are fat. Coincidence? You decide.