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Social Work on list of 10 Careers that Add Pounds

Photo courtesy of Huffington Post.

Jeers to Huffington Post for listing social work as one of 10 jobs that are likely to cause weight gain in this article.

Social work came in No. 3 on the list after travel agent and judge/attorney in the list, which was compiled by CareerBuilder. Other careers on the list included teacher, physician and police/firefighter.

According to the article careers that tend to make you heavier are ones in which you sit at a desk most of the day, eat lunch on the job, dine out regularly, or eat due to stress.

Q: Social workers, do you agree or disagree with the article?

 

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5 Comments

  1. I find that that eat significantly more junk food (i.e. chocolate, chips, etc) when I’m at work and when my family is bashing my work. Yes, I can definitely see how this job makes you gain weight.

  2. Absolutely not! In genera, Social Workers are not professionals who sit at their desks for hours at a time. I don’t believe that the profession causes weight gain. Rather, societal attitudes that discount the profession and individuals who characterize us as too liberal do-gooders minimize our professionalism. Individuals gain weight due to their personal behavior in response to a myriad of factors, most of which are not related to the profession. Shame on Huffington Post for this suspect “rating”.

  3. I cannot see how sitting at a desk the whole day can make you gain weight. There is nothing wrong with eating lunch at your desk, just make sure that you do not overdo it, like with anything else. If you eat so much while on the job while sitting at a desk the whole day, then you need to rethink your eating habits, not your career. Some people use their desk job as an excuse for eating the day away. In my opinion, if this was true, then the world has a big problem on their hands, because there is not just a little handful of desk jobs out there.

  4. Any job that decreases or limits physical exercise and increases stress, will contribute to weight gain!

    You can avoid that by getting exercise daily either before or after work. The key is to work off the amount of calories you consume.

    Problem solved?

  5. I’d say that I agree conditionally. A lot of social work jobs are high stress. I gained about 30 pounds in six months during my most stressful time. I was working in Palmdale, California, covering an understaffed office while also maintaining my regular caseload supervising adoptions spread over five counties. I carried about the equivalent of a triple caseload, drove about 1,000 miles a week, worked about 55-60 hours a week, and definitely found myself eating to deal with the stress. Most of the eating (as I remember it) was probably done in my driver’s seat, from a fast food window. Other professions might lend themselves to similar situations, but I can’t think of many.

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