Are you a shift employee? Then be careful, you are having increased risk of obesity!

Obesity is defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation in the human body that presents a risk to health by the World Health Organization. Obesity can be measured using the body mass index (BMI), a person’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of his or her height (in meters). A person with a BMI of 30 or more is generally considered obese. A person with a BMI equal to or more than 25 is considered overweight. However, these cut-off BMI values may vary from ethnicity to ethnicity.

Obesity is a major part of metabolic syndrome which is a major risk factor for a number of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Obesity is now dramatically on the rise in high, low- and middle-income countries, particularly in urban settings.

Recent research has been found that higher rates of obesity and ill-health can be observed in shift workers than the general population. Moreover, they also found that observed a trend of increasing risk of both overweight and obesity with increasing duration of rotating shift work. Several mechanisms through which shift work exposure could be associated with obesity have been suggested. Mainly erratic working schedules lead to consuming food away from home mainly in cheap fast-food restaurants. They are rich in calorie, sugar, fat (Saturated fat, Trans fat, cholesterol), salt and low in micronutrients and fiber. Also, a massive portion size tends to accumulate this unhealthy food inside your body more and more.

In addition to that, erratic workers do not eat in a regular pattern and they skip their main meals such as breakfast and lunch. As a result, they tend to eat more calorie-rich food at night and the stomach does not have adequate time for digestion because soon after eating, they go to sleep. This may lead to increase abdominal fat, also known as obesity which carries an increased risk for the development of cardiovascular diseases.

Furthermore, these people tend to consume more alcohol and cigarettes in order to prevent loneliness or to obtain fun. For example, if a group of male employees goes around the country for marketing definitely most of the nights they organize a party with alcohol. 

On the other hands, they do not have time to engage in physical activities and shift workers experience the most job-related stress can also lead to obesity and hypertension.

Due to their working schedule they may suffer from sleep disturbances which may also influence the digestion and metabolism. Several studies have demonstrated that sleep durations are generally shorter among individuals working at night may result in overweight and obesity among shift workers.

Long-term exposure to shift work might disturb the normal circadian rhythm, which might impair glucose metabolism and lipid homeostasis. Although the mechanism linking obesity to circadian disruption has not yet been fully revealed, both animal and human studies have indicated that disruption of the circadian rhythm might be causal for obesity.

Obesity is an important driver of costs connected with absenteeism, healthcare claims, sick leave, injuries, and disability of workers. The high prevalence of overweight and obesity is particularly concerning because of the links between overweight/obesity, poor health outcomes and cause mortality is well established. However, as shift work is an integral component of many occupations, it is necessary for the development of organizational policies on the optimal organization of shifts for workers’ health. Some examples are shift schedules should be designed according to ergonomic criteria recommended to be suitable to limit negative effects on health by avoiding or minimizing circadian disruption and accumulation of sleep deficiency. Moreover, organizations also can introduce healthy foods for their cafeterias. 

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References

Liu, Q., Shi, J., Duan, P., Liu, B., Li, T., Wang, C., Li, H., Yang, T., Gan, Y., Wang, X., Cao, X., & Lu, Z. (2018). Is shift work associated with a higher risk of overweight or obesity? A systematic review of observational studies with meta-analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology, 1956–1971.

Wang, X.S., Armstrong, M. E., Cairns, B.J., Key, T.J., &Travis, R. C. (2011). Shift work and chronic disease: the epidemiological evidence. Occup Med (Lond), 61, 78–89.