The Weighty Consequences Of Law Practice

This seems like a no-brainer, but a survey this week reinforced the notion that the duties of the legal profession help pack on the pounds.

"Lawyers, judges and other legal professionals work in one of the top professions for weight gain, according to a survey of nearly 3,700 full-time workers by CareerBuilder."

Among those most likely to report weight gain:

1) Administrative Assistant (69 percent said they gained weight in their current jobs)

2) Engineer (56 percent)

3) Teacher/Instructor K-12 (51 percent)

3) Nurse Practitioner or Physician’s Assistant (51 percent)

5) IT Manager/Network Administrator (51 percent)

6) Attorney/Judge/Legal Professional (48 percent)

7) Machine Operator/Assembly/Production Worker (45 percent)

8) Scientist, Biological/Physical/Social (39 percent)

As AOL Jobs observes, "[t]hose in the law profession have to read reams and reams and reams of text. Not the kind of text that you can scan while jogging on the treadmill, but the kind of text that takes hours to study, highlight, and annotate. Reading that much is good for the mind, but not so hot for the body."

I've worked at a law school long enough to see this trend in law students. They come in as fit, fresh-faced 22 year olds and leave as overweight (and sometimes wrinkly and bald) 25 year olds. Moral of the story: make sure to start a healthy lifestyle while in law school that will transfer over to your work in the legal profession. If you are already hard at work in the legal profession, stay cognizant of the weight gain pitfalls.

ABAJournal -- Is weight gain a job hazard for lawyers? Profession cited for packing on the pounds.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

For The Love Of Archives

US News Scholarship Impact Issues

AALL/LexisNexis Call for Papers 2019-2020 Now Open!