IT workers told, 'Put down the biscuits, fat boy'
BCS orders physical jerks
Posted in Management, 11th January 2010 16:04 GMT
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The BCS is urging tech workers to get fit for the New Year and has set up a website to help them shift the extra pounds.
A survey last year put IT workers at the bottom of the league for fitness. In fact the only thing tech workers came out on top for was drinking coffee - with an average of ten cups a day.
Only 14 per cent of tech workers get their government-mandated five fruit or vegetables a day and only 19 per cent did enough exercise.
Enter the Chartered Institute for IT, as the BCS prefers to be called, which hopes tech workers will use the new year as a reason to get fit.
It has set up a website to help frustrated techies lose some weight and improve their 'wellness'.
The Savvy Citizens website promises tips on fitness and there's even a video from a top telly doctor called Dr Sarah Jarvis. There's information on cholesterol, body mass index and heart disease.
The site also offers dozens of links to other sources of health and fitness information. ®
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COMMENTS
Unfit IT Types.
Guilty.
Though I did start a vicious diet in December. Down 20 lbs and a couple inches around the middle. Working out a few times a week to build muscle.
So at least some of us make changes, but I have to say these programs are entirely backwards in how to deal with “fitness” issues. The skinny and fit always think it’s “so easy” to get and stay fit. Motivation is just never a problem for these folks, and hey, everyone’s built the same, right?
When trying to help people lose weight or get fit, guilt tripping them into it is never going to work. You have to look at the reasons the person got out of shape in the first place, and why they continue to be so. Work by attacking the source of the problem, be it psychological, physical, time-management, stress, you name it. There as dozens of different reasons that people get out of shape, however society’s response is “they are just lazy, worthless bastards.” Ostracizing them and trying to guilt them into losing weight/getting fit only exacerbates the issues. People with weight or fitness issues will often avoid social situations including places where they could go for exercise due to this. If you receive abuse in public situations due to weight/fitness issues, you tend to avoid public situations. Suddenly the “lazy lardasses” aren’t going to the gym, out for a jog etc. not due to laziness, but rather fear of social recrimination. This is often especially true amongst IT folk. Like it or not, many IT folk were “geeks” growing up, and don’t seem to respond well to the “suck it up, ya pansy” drill-sergeant approach.
I’m not saying people should not be accountable for their own issues. I don’t blame society/parents/etc. for my getting out of shape. I am simply saying that this particular approach (trying to guilt people into losing weight or increasing fitness) is a waste of money. (Decades of failure, if nothing else, serves as evidence for this.)
If an organisation/government/individual/etc. honestly wants to help with the problem, they need to take a different track. Repeating the same action over and over again expecting different results...
Well, I can applaud the effort at least. Encouraging people to get fit and stay that way is a laudable goal. I simply believe this particular implementation is heavily flawed and doomed to failure.
FO BCS, I'm joining the NBA
And you can pry my biscuits from my cold dead fingers... (admittedly it won't be a long wait)
Sir
I have a similar problem, but with fax machines.
Everyone has their blind spot :)
@Steven Knox
"what IS weird with you, then?"
Well, I do suffer from OCD. It sometimes manifests itself as an unconscious need to move objects around so they're all aligned. For instance, in the gym I always put the same size weights back on the same bar of the rack. In descending weight order. With same side of each weight facing outwards.
Gym equipment is so difficult to work though
seriously, I went to the gym once and couldn't work out how to program the running machine, fitness instructor nearly wet herself when she found out I was in IT...
I'll stick to martial arts for my fitness thanks...
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