The results of a study released on Thursday that was funded by a grant from Coca-Cola and written about in the New York Times turned into a huge controversial follow-up to a study about the workplace’s physical activity and obesity conducted last year by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics which, in 2011, discovered that American employees have become much less active over the past five decades. The initial study was not sponsored but, instead, was conducted by the U.S. federal government.
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Last year’s report scrutinized data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and learned that Americans are less active now than they had been in the past. Logically, this can be blamed on the fact that back in the 1960s, and before that, people did more physical work on their job than they are doing by sitting at a computer desk utilizing a computer and telephone these days. The study found that workers in the United States, on the average, use up 150 fewer calories each workday than they did a generation ago.
Similarly, the controversial New York Times article which was related to the study says, basically, that women are larger around the waist these days because this generation’s women are doing less housework than they did during the last generation.
Following the publication of the article, women hit the social media outlets with outrage at the sexist summation of the New York Times’ article. The controversial article is entitled “What Housework Has to Do With Waistlines” and can be viewed by clicking here. The actual study published by Plosone may be viewed by clicking here.
Critics are also arguing that the data is not accurate because life at home just as well as life at work has drastically changed over the past five decades. It is said that regardless of the amount of work women did at home then as compared to the amount of work women do at home now, household chores have become much more simplified and have needed less physical exertion to complete due to improvements in household instruments.
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