Study: New ergonomic guidelines needed to accommodate obese employees

Friday, April 7, 2017
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Obese workers don't handle physical work the same way as those of normal weight and a new study says we need to revamp some guidelines to accommodate that.

Teams at Texas A&M and the University of Buffalo found that normal-weight workers had more grip endurance, shoulder flexibility, and trunk strength.

Obesity sharply cut muscle endurance and the biggest effects were at lower work intensity levels.

With two-thirds of Americans overweight, experts say our ergonomic guidelines are outdated.

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