Hacker News Reader

Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

I always understood a lot of the industrial age jobs took a toll because of hazards & health issues. Occupational hazards like mine collapse & black lung, heavy machinery, fumes, and so forth. Are there many accounts of people simply being "all worn out" from hands on work? Are, e.g., lumberjacks who aren't injured, healthy or worn thin?

View on HN

Go ask anyone aged 45 or over, who does physical labor - construction workers, electricians, farm workers, flatbed truck drivers. They will all tell you of the severe toll on their muscles, bones, and most specifically joints. Shoulders, elbows, hands, knees, and backs get to a point of being functionally disabled.

So, yes, physical labor, even with full OSHA support, will wear your body out. Alongside all those structural injuries seems to come a penumbra of other illnesses, like heart and kidney disease.

Are there any commonly known physical labor jobs that do not have that result?

My dad is a logger and was a mechanic; he's almost 61 and "retired" for two years. He thrashes along six or seven days a week, cutting on two different jobs, with a cable skidder and chainsaw - so he's jumping up and down, sawing, and pulling cable all day. I'm amazed at how hard he can work, but he's always been a bull. I think he's afraid that if he slows down, he's not going to be able to start back up. Or maybe it's just the way he is. Only issue he's really had is that the years of power tools and vibrations got to his wrists and hands, so he had to get carpal tunnel surgery.

Yes, but it isn't clear if they are worn out from 45 years of physical labor, or worn out because their body is 65 years old.

Presumably that's what studies would be for. Compare the joints of an office worker to the joints of an uninjured lumberjack.

Sure. Now compare their amounts of muscular mass, and the percentages of body fat.

I think the real problem is doing the same thing many hours a day, every day, all year long, for decades. Whether that's sitting, or felling trees, it appears to be equally bad, just in different ways.

We are shaped by evolution for a more varied lifestyle.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com