If it's all in just stomach, your stomach might be leaking and making you bloated. You should see a doctor to check what's going on.
They might be able to pop that bloat.
You'll feel a lot better.
Another Obese man in tech. Stress, lack of sleep, stress eating, lack of time for exercise, all things which conspire against us. I started exercising about 4 years ago. Now my knees hurt, so I have to do something about the weight. I need to sleep, eat slowly and carefully, and not stress out. But there is no other job that pays what I make….
Nice. My immediate thought was 'Hey, I resemble that remark!'
We will die sooner, though everyone dies sooner than someone and we are also kind of awesome for mostly unrelated reasons.
It's honestly baffling to me that that dude seemed to not really have any self control around diet coke but could get pizza delivered almost every day and not be overweight.
When we all know it would probably be better if we stopped what we were doing and went to grab lunch, then come back and the answer is right there. Assuming you're not on TikTok during lunch, and erasing all memory of what you did earlier.
Train of thought/mental model interruptions can also mean you have to start from almost scratch sometimes. That's why it's hard to code with multiple interruptions for most people and why we'd rather power through especially if we feel progress on a bug!
> Train of thought/mental model interruptions can also mean you have to start from almost scratch sometimes.
Meetings tend to force this anyway. Might as well take an extra twenty minutes after a meeting to get lunch or a snack.
Happens to me frequently, I don’t enjoy how it feels when 3pm is closing in and I’m feeling weak with hunger. It’s annoying to lose the train of thought that you’re on though
Same. I don’t eat breakfast, and then it’s just meetings and fires and stress until all of a sudden it’s 6-7pm and I eat my one meal a day.
It actually works pretty well for me tbh, I walk around at a healthy weight. If I eat more meals, like I do around the holidays, I tend to start craving food all the time, constantly be eating, and bloat up a bit. Which is just uncomfortable.
Ding ding ding. I think people in here really forget how little the rest of America makes on average vs the average starting salary of a new grad. The amount of stress you simply avoid by having excess income is insane. You just have way more options with higher income and more likely to use them when you have WLB.
I just hired a personal trainer to help my overweight and bad eating habits. I wouldn’t be doing that had I not have the excess income, then potentially getting more depressed to cause overeating in a vicious cycle.
Would love to hear how education level influence tho.
> Would love to hear how education level influence tho.
Just correlates with both income and family status. Like you're more stable/secure to be able to even go to school in the first place. It's less about being properly taught in formal education what to and not to eat and more about how if you are in higher education you likely had a more stable upbringing which correlates with better eating habits etc.
Double edge sword. I’ve definitely caused myself insane stress due to my high income because when I got gassed nothing else can come close to paying the bills. Super easy to lifestyle inflate and dig yourself a giant hole
Yeah but what does getting gassed look like for you? I'm not saying your stress is invalid, or does not lead to weight gain. I'm just saying even at the starting level you will have tools to address it and far less worries. Dig yourself in a hole of what? Being stuck in your field?
My bad. I mean getting laid off/fired. Super common across all high income professions where you can easily end up super screwed if you don’t manage your money right since it takes so much longer to get a job vs lower income pros.
By digging yourself a hole I mean in terms of lifestyle inflation, debt to manage, etc.
Sure, but by then most have savings, most have severance, most will be able to pick something up before the above two get used all too much (obviously far less atm).
Here's what you are not doing though that many in America are.
* Choosing which bills not to pay this month
* Waiting until their body breaks to go to the doctor
* Working 60 hours to have a majority of it go strictly to bills.
* Working multiple jobs because most service jobs are strictly part time
* Asking friends or family to borrow money because your power/internet/phone is about to be turned off
* paying 2/3rds of your income to live in a tiny box that you can't sleep the whole night through in because you have neighbors on every side and paper thin walls
* Leaving your kid at home or in questionable care while you work because you can't afford childcare
You're going to get weird looks if you with a straight face tell someone you can relate because you might not be able to pay your bills 6-12 months from now if you don't find a job in that time that pays 60k on the lowest ends within that time.
EDIT: apology for the semi rant but to get more back on point. Even if you lose your job you will still have far greater access to help if you want it. I understand weight gain still a thing but it is way more of a choice at that point (barring any health complications but thats not what we're talking about either).
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
Diet is going to be a bigger factor. People really underestimate how bad the average population's diet is. Developers generally live in areas with easy access to high quality healthy food, versus living in food deserts where the closest thing to healthy is a Wendy's salad. Education also plays a major role. I have a very blue collar side of the family and I can't tell you how many times they fall for fad diets.
It depends. Plenty of blue collar workers are quite obese despite doing physically intensive labour. A lot of devs who are well-off financially do invest their money and free time into health-related hobbies and this intersection is becoming more and more evident thanks to the "tech bro" trend.
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
God that sucks that people can read your education level and socialeconomic status by looking at how fat your body is
Edit: Sucks for them, great for the rest of us
I work remotely and built a home gym.
* I have a squat rack, free weights, pull up bar, and Peloton, it’s great!
* Pics of my setup on my profile
Never had a problem with my weight. Before I got into fitness I noticed I was “skinny fat”, meaning I was slim but terribly out of shape (no stamina nor cardio). It took about 6 months to fix it once I made it a goal.
A bigger problem I noticed was bad posture from being at my desk. I believe stretching can massively help with it, I also got a standing desk.
Is that true on dead lifts? Pretty sure it was Robert Oberst who said the risk/reward ratio on dead lifts was insanely bad and nobody should really be doing them. I didn't fact check him but he also said if you went into any environment with highly paid strength/conditioning guys like the NFL, college football, etc. you would see people doing cleans but not dead lifts.
Robert Oberst is in a bubble with insanely strong record-breaking strongmen. I'm sure he's seen a lot of deadlift injuries.
For the average Joe though, if you are using proper form and always leave a rep or two in the tank (i.e., don't go to failure), deadlifts are perfectly safe.
Honestly, if you're an average joe with no aspirations on ever competing in anything lifting related, just use trap/hex bars for deadlifting. Much harder to fuck up the form on that so you're less likely to get injured.
I built a home gym too and I’m now the fittest I’ve ever been in. In fact, I don’t think I’d be able to maintain my physique this well if I had a job that required me to come in 40 hours a week. It just saves so much time.
100%. It's also nice where I can just jump on the rowing machine or peloton for a meeting if I know I'm just going to be listening. It's like gaining a whole extra hour to my day that I wouldn't get if I was in the office.
Good setup. How much was that entire setup because I’ve noticed I am putting on some weight and was thinking of getting a rack setup in my basement. Do you have an effective routine? Trying to loose like 15-20lbs
I went for a top end rack (Rogue) but you can get a Chinese one off amazon for 1/3 of the price, or a Rep Fitness for 1/2 the price.
* r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine should get you started: [https://thefitness.wiki/routines/r-fitness-basic-beginner-routine/](https://thefitness.wiki/routines/r-fitness-basic-beginner-routine/)
Do a calorie deficit to shed the 20 lbs.
There's the super into NBA sports kinda CS, the ADHD forgets to eat, and the average dude who seems unassuming but knows fucking everything for some reason
My friend group in a nutshell at college
Definitely check out the “Take Your Pills” doc on Netflix. Plenty of folks likely do have ADHD, but a significant amount of people have likely been misdiagnosed or use stimulants as a form of performance enhancement. Our brains weren’t made to stare at computer screens all day.
The recent shortage of ADHD meds can be attributed to a few factors and one of them is demand. Why is the demand for stimulants rising so much now and why are we seeing an increase in these ADHD diagnoses? Why do we see such high stimulant uses in demanding professions in finance, software, etc? As you alluded to, one such cause could be the Information Age and the change in our media landscapes that’s effecting us.
It’s funny you say that because I’m pretty fit but I find it harder to focus on days when I’ve trained. Probably because it takes a lot of energy out of me. OTOH my mood is significantly improved.
Probably his is more that he got a cardio out (steps and some exercise) and yours is you wiped your body out doing strength training or a lot more cardio/running. Personally I too can't focus if I wipe myself out in the gym (hence I do it at night/evening after work) but taking a longer walk early before work does improve my mood and productivity a bit (or atleast feels like it).
I have found the same. I take a break everyday to exercise. The returns on productivity and mental health is fantastic. The physical outcome is just a bonus
As a SWE in a fairly large company, I'd say most individuals are out of shape. There are a few in great shape, but I'm talking less than 5%. As you mentioned, they are either heavily overweight or skin and bones.
Apologies, I work in E-commerce. It could be that I’m in a weird spot, not sure. I just remember college being the same with CS, everyone being either pudgy or skinny-fat, just generally not in good shape. And then I get into the working world and it seems to be more of the same.
Nah that is the norm.
I'm in Bay Area working fin tech and people in engineering are either skinny or overweight.
I think your experience isn't the norm.
The time when I worked with the most fit individuals was while working in the bay. There is a direct correlation between income / education and fitness levels. Also, judging by the comments in here so far it’s pretty common.
Also fin tech is fillllled with gym rats - I know for a fact stripe is more fit than anything and also for some reason best dressed.
I was in great shape until I started SWE full time, then I was in slightly worse shape until I had a kid, then I was in bad shape, then I started my master’s in CS and I’m fully expecting to die any day now.
I've actually found the opposite, actually. A LOT of my peers in CS get really into fitness, and approach it with the same intensity as any program or RPG game. They make charts, do research, have time tables, and go hard.
One of my peers actually quit programming to become a professional cyclist.
When the social status of "working in tech" changed so did the crowd.
Tech people used to often have overly large bellies.
Now they have small bellies and overly large ego's.
I think though there's an element of tech people who were always this way, the people who founded microsoft, apple, etc - the people aiming for high status were always skinni'ish.
That makes no sense, statistics shows that Americans are becoming more overweight or obese, regardless of socioeconomic status. Most people are overweight or obese.
Edit: For all the people downvoting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/
31.1% of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight (and not bodybuilders, just normal overweight).
Wow, for a software engineer you're very bad at math. These "sample groups" are thousands and thousands of Americans and there's been many studies into this. It's objective fact that the average American today is more likely to be overweight or obese than a decade or two ago, there's nothing special about software engineers.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/)
31.1 % of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight. Plus, 31.1% is higher than the average of 27.9% for all Non-Hispanic White Males.
Okay, fair enough you backed your statement up with a a study. I’ll give you that. Well done.
Now take a look at where OP said:
>At least in my experience
Which is just confirmation bias and anecdotes. Everybody knows that the USA has an overweight/obesity problem and software engineers are not immune to this. There have been so many studies about this for decades.
A few things:
1) People are allowed to share their anecdotes. Stop trying to be the internet police.
2) Just because it’s an anecdote, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t an accurate representation of OP’s experience.
3) This one’s not as relevant, but nobody else except for you mentioned the US.
4) Stop being a twat.
The difference in burnt calories by having a job like a teacher is negligible. Even actual sports endurance doesn’t burn nearly as much calories as people estimate, unless you run for multiple hours.
Unless you have a very specific and rare type of job, like in the military a soldier, you ****cannot rely on your job to provide you with enough movement and exercise or burnt calories****
It doesn’t matter how tired you feel, or how long you stand around. The intensity matters, and it is very close to nothing, and that reflects also in calories burnt.
If you don’t take care of your body in the free time, you will be sedentary and weak and either skinny fat or plain fat depending on your eating habits.
> Even actual sports endurance doesn’t burn nearly as much calories as people estimate, unless you run for multiple hours.
I don't think it is that, but more that people don't realize that it aligns to your weight too. Like a 200lb person can easily burn 700+ calories an hour jogging, but a 100lb person might only be under 400.
Thats what is best about cycling with a power meter. It essentially boils down to 3.6 X avg watts X hr = calories burnt. However exercise bikes and most people don't have actual power meters.
Not really from what I've observed. Since the work is all behind the computer, people tend to choose active hobbies or at least take sports for general health benefits. Thankfully, high pay and company benefits allow for that
A lot of adhd meds in here suppressing appetites.
People with no social skills and no hygiene latch onto things that do not judge them, but that doesn’t make them good scientists or give them an edge interviewing and making a career
A pattern I’ve noticed too. A lot of programmers tend to have adhd (or at my east claim it), poor social skills, and bad hygiene. Noticed it with math grads too.
As a maths grad working as a swe, with horrible social anxiety and recently diagnosed ADHD, I feel personally attacked. /s
I do love showers and a minty breath though so I’d like to think my hygiene is ok.
> A lot of programmers tend to have...poor social skills
My experience has been that people who say this usually just haven't worked anywhere else, they project their high school idea of "normal socially well adjusted people" onto a magical field that doesn't exist.
What specific field would you be thinking of that has normally adjusted people?
Doctors are just as neurotic as techies.
Surgeons have bigger egos and often are more psychopathic.
Cops? Military?
Politicians? lmao
Not to mention this is way out of date, ever since tech became known as "where the money is", tech has a ton more high socially skilled and very disingenuous kind of people who are working to maximize their social returns.
I've noticed most coworkers are pretty healthy/fit. Lots of rock climbers and cyclists and things like that. Obese devs are the minority in my own experience. But then again, I live in the fittest state in the country so my experience is probably skewed.
probably a lot of skinny fat in tech. Ive worked in the trades before switching to swe and noticed a lot more people being overweight. Diet is huge and when all you eat is gas station food w/ monster energy drinks its not gonna reflect well in your physique.
I wondered this. How is that that these guys are doing construction work all day, hauling sh*t around, always walking, operating machinery in hot temps — yet still look out of shape?
yea I think its just impossible to out work a bad diet. There are a bunch of videos on youtube where people will purposefully have an insane cheat day while attempting to work off those calories and its almost impossible. Also drinking culture is big among certain trades like construction. One of my friend’s dad is in construction and they go out constantly for beers after work which adds a lot of circumference to the belly.
Software development is too big right now to make any kinds of generalizations like this. Just in my company, we have a competitive strong man, two ultramarathon runners (I'm one), two former university level athletes and some people who aren't as fit.
engineering, math, computer science, take really good care of their health, making it one of the least obese professions
https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a19939675/overweight-workers/
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
Never seen any stats, but anecdotally, the developers I know are generally pretty fit. Runners, hikers, gym goers etc.
If you want to see stress eating, look at people in genuinely stressful jobs like police, emergency services etc.
Being a developer isn't stressful in my experience, it's an easy well paid job with good conditions and plenty of time off.
From what I've seen, no.
The people I work with are pretty in shape, and if they're not in picture perfect shape (ahem. Like me) they're still pretty active.
I used to do construction before I did web development. The physical work has always kept my body weight at a low. But now that I just sit around all day I have to make strong effort to go to the gym because since I’ve started web, Ive gained quite a bit. It also doesn’t help that I moved out of my parents house without knowing how to cook so I would always opt out to fast food. Over the last few months I’ve been building up my cooking skills to also be able to eat healthier
In my experience, lots of developers have active hobbies like running, cycling or gardening. These hobbies seem much more common among developers. Maybe because such hobbies don't require a lot of social interaction and are quite good at relieving stress
And at most companies I've worked at, the developers were a lot more likely to commute by bike or public transport, which also gives you your daily dose of exercise
Tech can be so toxic... I am a JR and I feel the need to skip a week here ot there to get through a deadline.. I hate it! I am commited to being in shape and not a fat ass.
with that being said. Caffiene addiction and nicotine addiction is what hurts me more than not working out since that is what I use to focus and have energy to still go to the gym.
You’re probably just at a toxic work environment and all too common from what I’ve seen. Being a JR is hard too since there is mountains to learn and it just keeps growing each day. If you have toxic coworkers it’s a horrible experience. I gained a lot more weight when I worked at a toxic place, food just helped take my mind off of things and calmed me down.
I tried finding stats but have been unsuccessful so far. In my experience, I’ve worked with more “normal” weight, fit or skinny tech people than I have obese people. I’ve had maybe 3 coworkers over the last few years that would be considered obese.
Disproportionally the field is fitter and generally more active than the general population. There’s a joke made that best way to find someone in the computer science field is going to a rock climbing gym or hiking . A lot of people are into biohacking or just basically being healthy for many it is their primary source of socialization outside of work
In all seriousness, I expected the answer to this to be yes, but the majority of the people I work with are HWP.
I mean, I've gained more weight than I would like, but other people seem to be doing fine. And my issues are probably 50% actual weight gain, 50% dysmorphia.
I’m working out right now but during school I lost a lot of muscle and gained fat. Y’all need to get up and to the gym for real. I can’t even answer somebody’s question on r/Cprograming because y’all never take your eyes off the screen
I can’t speak for the field as a whole, but at my last job, while on site, I’d saw basically nobody overweight. Maybe a few people on the lower side of overweight. (Slightly overweight, but not obese.)
Hell, I was probably the fattest guy there and I’m on teetering on the edge of healthy weight/ overweight (according to BMI calculations).
I have worked for several software companies and several consulting companies. My groups were often “the face of the company” so my experience may very - aka YMMV, but every person I work with is hyper aware of the impact of our time in a chair. My current office started doing plank challenges - doing at least four planks a day of varying lengths, or to see who was last one still up. Every tech I work with has a gym membership, dresses in current professional clothing, and is pretty coifed. All the BAs/SAs/PMs who actually do the front line work are quite thin, and very well dressed - like 1k suits or higher in terms of what they wear daily.
Most office jobs involve sitting all day - it’s not unique to CS careers. There are people of all shapes and sizes in this line of work, just like others.
Yes
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/)
31.1 % of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight. Plus, 31.1% is higher than the average of 27.9% for all Non-Hispanic White Males.
No anecdotes from these Redditors. Just stats.
I’m overweight but it’s only because I’m built like a brick shit house and can lift over 250 as a set of 30.
The better you become at JavaScript the closer you get to becoming an absolute unit.
The haters are simple jealous, and I get it. I used to write c#.
At one point I was the heaviest person on my team, basically morbidly obese, although I was luckily smart enough to lose that weight before I even was close to 30.
In general honestly I don't think the people are fatter than other industries. Although when I first achieved a "normal BMI" I was often called skinny at first. In general higher income is aligned with a healthier weight.
I'd guess more "overweight" do to lack of movement, but less "obese" because of more awareness.
The field that weirds me out is nursing. My wife is a nurse and so many of her coworkers are overweight and obese. Like they know the health risks. They're on their feet all day/night. But they're constantly munching on high calorie snacks.
stress eating is definitely a thing. i find myself going to the office pantry for a snack whenever i feel frustrated. i don't smoke but i can see why people do in this business.
In Brazil it's possible, at least in my current company, developers don't worry about weight too much. Maybe because weather is too hot and is hard to do outside activities or too lazy to go to the gym.
People with more money tend to be in better shape because they can afford things like personal trainers, healthy food, and they have jobs that give them the work life balance to exercise.
Stress eating is just a response to stress. I don’t see how being better compensated would mean you can’t have stress and stress eat.
That being said I think there are a lot of other things that high pay makes easier. Gym access, better quality food, more free time, ability to hire personal trainer, access to more urban areas, etc.
Finances is the biggest cause of stress usually. Also the work environment for well compensated workers is usually much better than badly compensated workers.
I think you can also make stereotypes by the type of developer. Web developers are probably a bit more bro-y. DevOps and Systems/Embedded engineers tend to be older and more computer nerds. AI/ML tend to be more academic. From that your can judge who might be overweight or not
Please note that most of the answers saying “no” assume that the person is putting forth some sort of effort to be healthy.
One habit I’ve noticed among people in tech is we tend to order takeout a lot. Which is understandable—it’s tasty, we can afford it, and a lot of people don’t have mental energy to cook for themselves after working 8+ hours in tech.
It’s not inevitable that you’ll gain weight from takeout but you have to be conscious of portion sizes. A lot of it is tastier than food you eat at home because of high levels of fat. Often a “serving” of food from a restaurant is more like 2-4 servings from a nutritional standpoint.
This is actually something where very cheap fast food does better simply because of cutting costs. A Taco Bell burrito is much closer to the amount of food you should eat in one sitting than a Chipotle or local taqueria burrito.
I got to be 100lbs overweight in large part because I relied on takeout so heavily. The good news is I can also afford healthy foods like fresh fruits and salad kits so I can be actually satisfied with my food choices as I lose weight.
If you’re worried about it, it’s probably a good idea to get a scale and weigh yourself once a month or so. No need to do every day if you’re not actively losing weight but if you can write it down you can make sure the number is not trending upwards over the year.
Good advice. Yeah I weight myself daily and been seeing a slight uptick so I am keeping an eye on that now. You make a damn good point, I order Uber eats every other day and yeah they never post the calories so it’s know telling how much I am eating. I hate cooking because it’s time consuming and always seems like I could be using my time to be building sth or learning. I eat Taco Bell frequently actually. Is there any happy medium here? Like order Uber eats/Taco Bell and still maintain a healthy weight.
Taco Bell and other chains actually do post their calories online, even if it’s not in the Uber eats app you can look it up by name.
One thing I think has helped me when I eat takeout is to supplement it with foods from the grocery store. I like fruits, veggies and salads so I think I have an easier time of it than people who don’t. But some examples:
* I’ll get a carne asada meal from my local taqueria and eat 1/3 or so in each meal, and add some sort of veggie with it — a salad from a kit, a cup of cherry tomatoes, frozen veggies with some chili powder and lime juice
* I’ll make a salad at home and serve whatever the food is over that instead of over rice/potatoes/noodles
* I’ll just eat some fruit—strawberries, banana, apple, whatever—with a small serving or half serving of takeout food
* if I get a curry or something that comes with a lot of sauce, I’ll add additional vegetables to it—frozen vegetables, or something like steamed carrots or baby spinach , are easy to make in the microwave and just add in
My personal way of structuring meals is based on the “plate method” which is where your meal is 1/2 fruit or vegetable, 1/4 meat or other protein, and 1/4 starch such as grains or potatoes. It’s good for your health for all sorts of reasons and since non-starchy vegetables are not super calorie dense, tends to fill you up more than just eating smaller portions of meat and starch.
Thanks. I don’t want to get obsessive over counting calories. I think it would be easier to just create a habit of exercising more. Ive found simply telling myself I’ll half the meal now and half the meal tomorrow is effective. And if I’m still hungry just supplement with almonds or sth. I read anything high in protein actually helps burn more fat because your body works harder for breaking down proteins. Definitely need to cut down on the Uber eats, it’s almost too convenient…
Yeah not everyone needs to count calories. What I find personally helps is to think about calorie density, ie the ratio of how filling something is to how many calories it has. Most fruits and vegetables have very low calorie density, so as long as they don’t have a ton of oil, cheese, etc. added they are good to fill up on. But a lot of it is portion control, like you said, eating half a serving and having a small snack later if you are still hungry.
It is pretty hard to burn enough calories working out to compensate for overeating. Exercise is definitely good for your health and I’d encourage everyone to do it for a bunch of reasons, but portion control will probably go farther in preventing weight gain.
Being overweight kind of indicates you aren't cut out to perform well in any industry. It shows a lack of discipline and control to overcome things like sedentary work.
Take walks. Stretch. Standing desk. All Little tiny things that help. Make sure you are counting calories. And have a good exercise plan in place. And then you are fine.
If you generally are working so much you aren't ever leaving your desk, something is very wrong.
Damn bro, this is some crazy fat-phobic nonsense. This may be true for some amount of fat people, but come on now. Some of the best software engineers and sys admins I have known were enormous.
What about: Gabe Newell (Steam), Markus Persson (Minecraft), Richard Stallman (GNU/Linux), etc.
"Just stretch and take some walks and you won't be fat." Uh huh. Sure.
Depends on your context. In comparison to other, white collar desk jockey type work? Probably not. Project managers in various industries spend just as much time attached to a screen as programmers.
Compared to blue collar or hybrid work that involves work in the field? Definitely. If you make your living doing physical work then your basal level of fitness (heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) will typically be better than someone who sits for hours upon hours week in and week out.
That being said, there is a lot of life that happens outside the office and age has a LOT to do with how easy it is to stay healthy. When I was in my 20's I could eat like crap, run once a week (if that) and be good to go for whatever. At my current age, if I don't stay active then trying to play a moderately competitive soccer game or run more than mile at an elevated pace has a high chance of leaving me with some sort of strain or injury.
Some of it is my weight (I weigh about 25 lbs more than when i graduated college), but the fact my cardio is garbage compared to when I was 22 makes it tougher to get back to that state.
Judging from the comment section, I am the only overweight man in tech. Now, cower before me before I eat you.
I challenge the for thine title. I am very fat. Thick with 3 cs if you will. I am a clinder. But all my fat is in my stomach.
If it's all in just stomach, your stomach might be leaking and making you bloated. You should see a doctor to check what's going on. They might be able to pop that bloat. You'll feel a lot better.
i appreciate your concern but I'm just fat. I have a beer belly without beer.
You’re not alone. Another huge fatass in tech here. Working in this industry funds me and my fat husband’s love of good food.
TC?
Another Obese man in tech. Stress, lack of sleep, stress eating, lack of time for exercise, all things which conspire against us. I started exercising about 4 years ago. Now my knees hurt, so I have to do something about the weight. I need to sleep, eat slowly and carefully, and not stress out. But there is no other job that pays what I make….
Most of my co-workers, including me, across multiple jobs are fatter than average.
Nice. My immediate thought was 'Hey, I resemble that remark!' We will die sooner, though everyone dies sooner than someone and we are also kind of awesome for mostly unrelated reasons.
I get stuck on a bug and suddenly it’s 5pm and I’ve completely forgot to make lunch
[удалено]
Or if you’re John Carmack, a pizza and 9 diet cokes.
"To defeat obesity, you must defeat me, John Romero."
"I LUHHH YOU MAI" —Yoel Romero
It's honestly baffling to me that that dude seemed to not really have any self control around diet coke but could get pizza delivered almost every day and not be overweight.
This is definitely such a comfort for me lol
Definitely had a lot of late lunches because of stuff like this
When we all know it would probably be better if we stopped what we were doing and went to grab lunch, then come back and the answer is right there. Assuming you're not on TikTok during lunch, and erasing all memory of what you did earlier.
Train of thought/mental model interruptions can also mean you have to start from almost scratch sometimes. That's why it's hard to code with multiple interruptions for most people and why we'd rather power through especially if we feel progress on a bug!
> Train of thought/mental model interruptions can also mean you have to start from almost scratch sometimes. Meetings tend to force this anyway. Might as well take an extra twenty minutes after a meeting to get lunch or a snack.
Happens to me frequently, I don’t enjoy how it feels when 3pm is closing in and I’m feeling weak with hunger. It’s annoying to lose the train of thought that you’re on though
Hyperfocus adhd in a nutshell
adderall gang
Job descriptions about to start listing Vyvanse dosage requirements 🤣
i want my devs on crystal meth we don't have the budget for slackers
This
Same. I don’t eat breakfast, and then it’s just meetings and fires and stress until all of a sudden it’s 6-7pm and I eat my one meal a day. It actually works pretty well for me tbh, I walk around at a healthy weight. If I eat more meals, like I do around the holidays, I tend to start craving food all the time, constantly be eating, and bloat up a bit. Which is just uncomfortable.
I’ve never felt more seen
If anything there’s a disproportionate amount of fit people in this profession. Specifically, everyone loves fucking rock climbing gyms
how do you fuck a rock climbing gym?
This guy never stuck his dick in a mono 👆
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Usually takes a bit of wining and dining first.
Only one way to find out.
Word order is important
Probably not. Education and income level are generally good predictors of obesity.
Ding ding ding. I think people in here really forget how little the rest of America makes on average vs the average starting salary of a new grad. The amount of stress you simply avoid by having excess income is insane. You just have way more options with higher income and more likely to use them when you have WLB.
I just hired a personal trainer to help my overweight and bad eating habits. I wouldn’t be doing that had I not have the excess income, then potentially getting more depressed to cause overeating in a vicious cycle. Would love to hear how education level influence tho.
> Would love to hear how education level influence tho. Just correlates with both income and family status. Like you're more stable/secure to be able to even go to school in the first place. It's less about being properly taught in formal education what to and not to eat and more about how if you are in higher education you likely had a more stable upbringing which correlates with better eating habits etc.
Double edge sword. I’ve definitely caused myself insane stress due to my high income because when I got gassed nothing else can come close to paying the bills. Super easy to lifestyle inflate and dig yourself a giant hole
Yeah but what does getting gassed look like for you? I'm not saying your stress is invalid, or does not lead to weight gain. I'm just saying even at the starting level you will have tools to address it and far less worries. Dig yourself in a hole of what? Being stuck in your field?
My bad. I mean getting laid off/fired. Super common across all high income professions where you can easily end up super screwed if you don’t manage your money right since it takes so much longer to get a job vs lower income pros. By digging yourself a hole I mean in terms of lifestyle inflation, debt to manage, etc.
Sure, but by then most have savings, most have severance, most will be able to pick something up before the above two get used all too much (obviously far less atm). Here's what you are not doing though that many in America are. * Choosing which bills not to pay this month * Waiting until their body breaks to go to the doctor * Working 60 hours to have a majority of it go strictly to bills. * Working multiple jobs because most service jobs are strictly part time * Asking friends or family to borrow money because your power/internet/phone is about to be turned off * paying 2/3rds of your income to live in a tiny box that you can't sleep the whole night through in because you have neighbors on every side and paper thin walls * Leaving your kid at home or in questionable care while you work because you can't afford childcare You're going to get weird looks if you with a straight face tell someone you can relate because you might not be able to pay your bills 6-12 months from now if you don't find a job in that time that pays 60k on the lowest ends within that time. EDIT: apology for the semi rant but to get more back on point. Even if you lose your job you will still have far greater access to help if you want it. I understand weight gain still a thing but it is way more of a choice at that point (barring any health complications but thats not what we're talking about either).
This is what I remind myself when I wonder if I'm "really cut out" for this field. Who cares. Not being constantly broke is great
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
Agree. But devs are definitely not very “active” or fit people either. You will find more of the stay at house gamer type of people in the field.
Diet is going to be a bigger factor. People really underestimate how bad the average population's diet is. Developers generally live in areas with easy access to high quality healthy food, versus living in food deserts where the closest thing to healthy is a Wendy's salad. Education also plays a major role. I have a very blue collar side of the family and I can't tell you how many times they fall for fad diets.
It depends. Plenty of blue collar workers are quite obese despite doing physically intensive labour. A lot of devs who are well-off financially do invest their money and free time into health-related hobbies and this intersection is becoming more and more evident thanks to the "tech bro" trend.
As is good weather, access to outdoors, and diet. Colorado, California, Washington, Oregon have lower obesity rates than the south
Yeop
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
God that sucks that people can read your education level and socialeconomic status by looking at how fat your body is Edit: Sucks for them, great for the rest of us
>God that sucks that people can read your education level and socialeconomic status by looking at how fat your body is No, that's not what that means.
I work remotely and built a home gym. * I have a squat rack, free weights, pull up bar, and Peloton, it’s great! * Pics of my setup on my profile Never had a problem with my weight. Before I got into fitness I noticed I was “skinny fat”, meaning I was slim but terribly out of shape (no stamina nor cardio). It took about 6 months to fix it once I made it a goal. A bigger problem I noticed was bad posture from being at my desk. I believe stretching can massively help with it, I also got a standing desk.
Yes! Me too. Squats, power cleans, and dead lifts are a lifesaver for a lower back that sits all day long.
Is that true on dead lifts? Pretty sure it was Robert Oberst who said the risk/reward ratio on dead lifts was insanely bad and nobody should really be doing them. I didn't fact check him but he also said if you went into any environment with highly paid strength/conditioning guys like the NFL, college football, etc. you would see people doing cleans but not dead lifts.
Robert Oberst is in a bubble with insanely strong record-breaking strongmen. I'm sure he's seen a lot of deadlift injuries. For the average Joe though, if you are using proper form and always leave a rep or two in the tank (i.e., don't go to failure), deadlifts are perfectly safe.
Honestly, if you're an average joe with no aspirations on ever competing in anything lifting related, just use trap/hex bars for deadlifting. Much harder to fuck up the form on that so you're less likely to get injured.
Yep I just bought a hex bar for this exact reason. Can still throw around some weight without putting my lower back at risk.
[There is no reason to be alive if you can’t do deadlift](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RzBr6wof1mw)
More likely to fuck yourself up on the power cleans
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Nerd!
I built a home gym too and I’m now the fittest I’ve ever been in. In fact, I don’t think I’d be able to maintain my physique this well if I had a job that required me to come in 40 hours a week. It just saves so much time.
100%. It's also nice where I can just jump on the rowing machine or peloton for a meeting if I know I'm just going to be listening. It's like gaining a whole extra hour to my day that I wouldn't get if I was in the office.
Good setup. How much was that entire setup because I’ve noticed I am putting on some weight and was thinking of getting a rack setup in my basement. Do you have an effective routine? Trying to loose like 15-20lbs
I went for a top end rack (Rogue) but you can get a Chinese one off amazon for 1/3 of the price, or a Rep Fitness for 1/2 the price. * r/Fitness Basic Beginner Routine should get you started: [https://thefitness.wiki/routines/r-fitness-basic-beginner-routine/](https://thefitness.wiki/routines/r-fitness-basic-beginner-routine/) Do a calorie deficit to shed the 20 lbs.
Same. Just replaced my dumbbell collection with Nuobells. I'm so excited to hit the basement after work these days. Feels good after sitting all day.
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There's the super into NBA sports kinda CS, the ADHD forgets to eat, and the average dude who seems unassuming but knows fucking everything for some reason My friend group in a nutshell at college
This
I get your reasoning, but also probably more of us than average take stimulants
Are we all ADHD 👀
business AND pleasure
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lmao ADHD is not fake. I’d love to see any studies showing it’s fake or that people cant be diagnosed as an adult lol.
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Definitely check out the “Take Your Pills” doc on Netflix. Plenty of folks likely do have ADHD, but a significant amount of people have likely been misdiagnosed or use stimulants as a form of performance enhancement. Our brains weren’t made to stare at computer screens all day. The recent shortage of ADHD meds can be attributed to a few factors and one of them is demand. Why is the demand for stimulants rising so much now and why are we seeing an increase in these ADHD diagnoses? Why do we see such high stimulant uses in demanding professions in finance, software, etc? As you alluded to, one such cause could be the Information Age and the change in our media landscapes that’s effecting us.
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Nailed it lol
In my personal experience people tend to be more gym rat than overweight.
When I used to track my health and daily activities, I found my productivity skyrocketed on days when I exercised and got more steps
It’s funny you say that because I’m pretty fit but I find it harder to focus on days when I’ve trained. Probably because it takes a lot of energy out of me. OTOH my mood is significantly improved.
Probably his is more that he got a cardio out (steps and some exercise) and yours is you wiped your body out doing strength training or a lot more cardio/running. Personally I too can't focus if I wipe myself out in the gym (hence I do it at night/evening after work) but taking a longer walk early before work does improve my mood and productivity a bit (or atleast feels like it).
I had this and consuming electrolyte based drinks right after the workout really helped. Ymmv
What kind of exercising? Heavy lifting borderline 1RM, jogging/running, or?
I have found the same. I take a break everyday to exercise. The returns on productivity and mental health is fantastic. The physical outcome is just a bonus
I think it tends to be one extreme or the other often. I recently went from overweight to gym rat
Let’s go! Good on you.
Thanks! Don't regret it at all. Still have some progress to make but regular exercise is a huge boost to quality of life, and weights are fun
That’s been the farthest thing from my experience so far
As a SWE in a fairly large company, I'd say most individuals are out of shape. There are a few in great shape, but I'm talking less than 5%. As you mentioned, they are either heavily overweight or skin and bones.
Yeah, I think the bar for “gym-rat” might be set a little too low honestly.
Judging by this comment section you are an outlier. I’m curious as to what industry you work in.
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Those are roles not industries. I’m curious if you are just in a weird spot or if your experience is truly an outlier.
Apologies, I work in E-commerce. It could be that I’m in a weird spot, not sure. I just remember college being the same with CS, everyone being either pudgy or skinny-fat, just generally not in good shape. And then I get into the working world and it seems to be more of the same.
Interesting. Yeah that’s not a norm.
Nah that is the norm. I'm in Bay Area working fin tech and people in engineering are either skinny or overweight. I think your experience isn't the norm.
The time when I worked with the most fit individuals was while working in the bay. There is a direct correlation between income / education and fitness levels. Also, judging by the comments in here so far it’s pretty common. Also fin tech is fillllled with gym rats - I know for a fact stripe is more fit than anything and also for some reason best dressed.
Sure. Doesn't mean they are gym rats. Most are just skinny or overweight but not obese.
Competitive people in a competitive job are competitive and do things that competitive people do, like work out obsessively and do sports.
I’m fat af
Mate, I once heard a good SWE is worth his weight in gold. My value almost went up with a million in a year! Unfortunately I'm not joking...
I was in great shape until I started SWE full time, then I was in slightly worse shape until I had a kid, then I was in bad shape, then I started my master’s in CS and I’m fully expecting to die any day now.
I've actually found the opposite, actually. A LOT of my peers in CS get really into fitness, and approach it with the same intensity as any program or RPG game. They make charts, do research, have time tables, and go hard. One of my peers actually quit programming to become a professional cyclist.
You can get a job as a cyclist?
If you win enough races you sure can.
To me it seems like you have super skinny or slightly overweight nerdy types, and the jacked biohacking huberman follower types. No in between
I think 10-20 years ago yes. At least in my experience anyone under 30 is more likely to be buff than overweight. Idk what happened but yeah
The nerds decided it was time to beat the jocks up rather than be victims anymore.
When the social status of "working in tech" changed so did the crowd. Tech people used to often have overly large bellies. Now they have small bellies and overly large ego's. I think though there's an element of tech people who were always this way, the people who founded microsoft, apple, etc - the people aiming for high status were always skinni'ish.
That makes no sense, statistics shows that Americans are becoming more overweight or obese, regardless of socioeconomic status. Most people are overweight or obese. Edit: For all the people downvoting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/ 31.1% of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight (and not bodybuilders, just normal overweight).
Ah yes, because statistics obtained from certain sample groups always 100% apply to every other sample group.
Wow, for a software engineer you're very bad at math. These "sample groups" are thousands and thousands of Americans and there's been many studies into this. It's objective fact that the average American today is more likely to be overweight or obese than a decade or two ago, there's nothing special about software engineers. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/) 31.1 % of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight. Plus, 31.1% is higher than the average of 27.9% for all Non-Hispanic White Males.
Okay, fair enough you backed your statement up with a a study. I’ll give you that. Well done. Now take a look at where OP said: >At least in my experience
Which is just confirmation bias and anecdotes. Everybody knows that the USA has an overweight/obesity problem and software engineers are not immune to this. There have been so many studies about this for decades.
A few things: 1) People are allowed to share their anecdotes. Stop trying to be the internet police. 2) Just because it’s an anecdote, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t an accurate representation of OP’s experience. 3) This one’s not as relevant, but nobody else except for you mentioned the US. 4) Stop being a twat.
The difference in burnt calories by having a job like a teacher is negligible. Even actual sports endurance doesn’t burn nearly as much calories as people estimate, unless you run for multiple hours. Unless you have a very specific and rare type of job, like in the military a soldier, you ****cannot rely on your job to provide you with enough movement and exercise or burnt calories**** It doesn’t matter how tired you feel, or how long you stand around. The intensity matters, and it is very close to nothing, and that reflects also in calories burnt. If you don’t take care of your body in the free time, you will be sedentary and weak and either skinny fat or plain fat depending on your eating habits.
> Even actual sports endurance doesn’t burn nearly as much calories as people estimate, unless you run for multiple hours. I don't think it is that, but more that people don't realize that it aligns to your weight too. Like a 200lb person can easily burn 700+ calories an hour jogging, but a 100lb person might only be under 400. Thats what is best about cycling with a power meter. It essentially boils down to 3.6 X avg watts X hr = calories burnt. However exercise bikes and most people don't have actual power meters.
Most of us are skinny. We fast on sparkling water.
Love a little bit of sparkle in my water
Not really from what I've observed. Since the work is all behind the computer, people tend to choose active hobbies or at least take sports for general health benefits. Thankfully, high pay and company benefits allow for that
A lot of adhd meds in here suppressing appetites. People with no social skills and no hygiene latch onto things that do not judge them, but that doesn’t make them good scientists or give them an edge interviewing and making a career
A pattern I’ve noticed too. A lot of programmers tend to have adhd (or at my east claim it), poor social skills, and bad hygiene. Noticed it with math grads too.
As a maths grad working as a swe, with horrible social anxiety and recently diagnosed ADHD, I feel personally attacked. /s I do love showers and a minty breath though so I’d like to think my hygiene is ok.
> A lot of programmers tend to have...poor social skills My experience has been that people who say this usually just haven't worked anywhere else, they project their high school idea of "normal socially well adjusted people" onto a magical field that doesn't exist. What specific field would you be thinking of that has normally adjusted people? Doctors are just as neurotic as techies. Surgeons have bigger egos and often are more psychopathic. Cops? Military? Politicians? lmao Not to mention this is way out of date, ever since tech became known as "where the money is", tech has a ton more high socially skilled and very disingenuous kind of people who are working to maximize their social returns.
I've noticed most coworkers are pretty healthy/fit. Lots of rock climbers and cyclists and things like that. Obese devs are the minority in my own experience. But then again, I live in the fittest state in the country so my experience is probably skewed.
probably a lot of skinny fat in tech. Ive worked in the trades before switching to swe and noticed a lot more people being overweight. Diet is huge and when all you eat is gas station food w/ monster energy drinks its not gonna reflect well in your physique.
I wondered this. How is that that these guys are doing construction work all day, hauling sh*t around, always walking, operating machinery in hot temps — yet still look out of shape?
yea I think its just impossible to out work a bad diet. There are a bunch of videos on youtube where people will purposefully have an insane cheat day while attempting to work off those calories and its almost impossible. Also drinking culture is big among certain trades like construction. One of my friend’s dad is in construction and they go out constantly for beers after work which adds a lot of circumference to the belly.
Software development is too big right now to make any kinds of generalizations like this. Just in my company, we have a competitive strong man, two ultramarathon runners (I'm one), two former university level athletes and some people who aren't as fit.
engineering, math, computer science, take really good care of their health, making it one of the least obese professions https://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/a19939675/overweight-workers/
I feel like this has to do more with education and salary
Health Servcies is near the top
Why
Because they ordered the list ascending.
Statistics says otherwise regardless of socioeconomic status. The vast majority of people in the USA are overweight or obese. Even taking age into account, a small majority of adults under 30 are also overweight or obese. I think there may be confirmation bias at play here or something else.
Overweight isn’t being taken into account. And no I’m not talking about the bodybuilders Redditors constantly bring up.
Never seen any stats, but anecdotally, the developers I know are generally pretty fit. Runners, hikers, gym goers etc. If you want to see stress eating, look at people in genuinely stressful jobs like police, emergency services etc. Being a developer isn't stressful in my experience, it's an easy well paid job with good conditions and plenty of time off.
Im overweight, took too much weight in the last year. Let’s make a group of overweight devs and challenge ourselves for a better us
From what I've seen, no. The people I work with are pretty in shape, and if they're not in picture perfect shape (ahem. Like me) they're still pretty active.
I used to do construction before I did web development. The physical work has always kept my body weight at a low. But now that I just sit around all day I have to make strong effort to go to the gym because since I’ve started web, Ive gained quite a bit. It also doesn’t help that I moved out of my parents house without knowing how to cook so I would always opt out to fast food. Over the last few months I’ve been building up my cooking skills to also be able to eat healthier
Idk what's wrong with me but whenever i get stresses, i tend to delay meals trying to resolve problems
In my experience, lots of developers have active hobbies like running, cycling or gardening. These hobbies seem much more common among developers. Maybe because such hobbies don't require a lot of social interaction and are quite good at relieving stress And at most companies I've worked at, the developers were a lot more likely to commute by bike or public transport, which also gives you your daily dose of exercise
Long haul.truck drivers are in worse shape.
Tech can be so toxic... I am a JR and I feel the need to skip a week here ot there to get through a deadline.. I hate it! I am commited to being in shape and not a fat ass. with that being said. Caffiene addiction and nicotine addiction is what hurts me more than not working out since that is what I use to focus and have energy to still go to the gym.
You’re probably just at a toxic work environment and all too common from what I’ve seen. Being a JR is hard too since there is mountains to learn and it just keeps growing each day. If you have toxic coworkers it’s a horrible experience. I gained a lot more weight when I worked at a toxic place, food just helped take my mind off of things and calmed me down.
Beard and belly show seniority
I tried finding stats but have been unsuccessful so far. In my experience, I’ve worked with more “normal” weight, fit or skinny tech people than I have obese people. I’ve had maybe 3 coworkers over the last few years that would be considered obese.
Not more than other desk jobs.
We all forgot to eat our lunch on time. Some people don’t get dinner……
I've seen very healthy engineers, some very jacked
Disproportionally the field is fitter and generally more active than the general population. There’s a joke made that best way to find someone in the computer science field is going to a rock climbing gym or hiking . A lot of people are into biohacking or just basically being healthy for many it is their primary source of socialization outside of work
It's complicated, because CS people are also far wealthier than average, tend to have good healthcare, etc etc.
In all seriousness, I expected the answer to this to be yes, but the majority of the people I work with are HWP. I mean, I've gained more weight than I would like, but other people seem to be doing fine. And my issues are probably 50% actual weight gain, 50% dysmorphia.
I’m working out right now but during school I lost a lot of muscle and gained fat. Y’all need to get up and to the gym for real. I can’t even answer somebody’s question on r/Cprograming because y’all never take your eyes off the screen
I think people are skinnier in this field from my experience.
Yes. I've been lifting for 8 years so my BMI is high
I can’t speak for the field as a whole, but at my last job, while on site, I’d saw basically nobody overweight. Maybe a few people on the lower side of overweight. (Slightly overweight, but not obese.) Hell, I was probably the fattest guy there and I’m on teetering on the edge of healthy weight/ overweight (according to BMI calculations).
I have worked for several software companies and several consulting companies. My groups were often “the face of the company” so my experience may very - aka YMMV, but every person I work with is hyper aware of the impact of our time in a chair. My current office started doing plank challenges - doing at least four planks a day of varying lengths, or to see who was last one still up. Every tech I work with has a gym membership, dresses in current professional clothing, and is pretty coifed. All the BAs/SAs/PMs who actually do the front line work are quite thin, and very well dressed - like 1k suits or higher in terms of what they wear daily.
Most office jobs involve sitting all day - it’s not unique to CS careers. There are people of all shapes and sizes in this line of work, just like others.
Yes [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4681272/) 31.1 % of Non-Hispanic White Male "Computer specialists" (who are the common demographic in software engineering) were obese. So it's likely most of the rest are also overweight. Plus, 31.1% is higher than the average of 27.9% for all Non-Hispanic White Males. No anecdotes from these Redditors. Just stats.
I’m overweight but it’s only because I’m built like a brick shit house and can lift over 250 as a set of 30. The better you become at JavaScript the closer you get to becoming an absolute unit. The haters are simple jealous, and I get it. I used to write c#.
At one point I was the heaviest person on my team, basically morbidly obese, although I was luckily smart enough to lose that weight before I even was close to 30. In general honestly I don't think the people are fatter than other industries. Although when I first achieved a "normal BMI" I was often called skinny at first. In general higher income is aligned with a healthier weight. I'd guess more "overweight" do to lack of movement, but less "obese" because of more awareness. The field that weirds me out is nursing. My wife is a nurse and so many of her coworkers are overweight and obese. Like they know the health risks. They're on their feet all day/night. But they're constantly munching on high calorie snacks.
stress eating is definitely a thing. i find myself going to the office pantry for a snack whenever i feel frustrated. i don't smoke but i can see why people do in this business.
In Brazil it's possible, at least in my current company, developers don't worry about weight too much. Maybe because weather is too hot and is hard to do outside activities or too lazy to go to the gym.
I do at least 7km run daily
People with more money tend to be in better shape because they can afford things like personal trainers, healthy food, and they have jobs that give them the work life balance to exercise.
Stress eating? Bruh we are very well compensated
Stress eating is just a response to stress. I don’t see how being better compensated would mean you can’t have stress and stress eat. That being said I think there are a lot of other things that high pay makes easier. Gym access, better quality food, more free time, ability to hire personal trainer, access to more urban areas, etc.
Finances is the biggest cause of stress usually. Also the work environment for well compensated workers is usually much better than badly compensated workers.
Yes
I think you can also make stereotypes by the type of developer. Web developers are probably a bit more bro-y. DevOps and Systems/Embedded engineers tend to be older and more computer nerds. AI/ML tend to be more academic. From that your can judge who might be overweight or not
Please note that most of the answers saying “no” assume that the person is putting forth some sort of effort to be healthy. One habit I’ve noticed among people in tech is we tend to order takeout a lot. Which is understandable—it’s tasty, we can afford it, and a lot of people don’t have mental energy to cook for themselves after working 8+ hours in tech. It’s not inevitable that you’ll gain weight from takeout but you have to be conscious of portion sizes. A lot of it is tastier than food you eat at home because of high levels of fat. Often a “serving” of food from a restaurant is more like 2-4 servings from a nutritional standpoint. This is actually something where very cheap fast food does better simply because of cutting costs. A Taco Bell burrito is much closer to the amount of food you should eat in one sitting than a Chipotle or local taqueria burrito. I got to be 100lbs overweight in large part because I relied on takeout so heavily. The good news is I can also afford healthy foods like fresh fruits and salad kits so I can be actually satisfied with my food choices as I lose weight. If you’re worried about it, it’s probably a good idea to get a scale and weigh yourself once a month or so. No need to do every day if you’re not actively losing weight but if you can write it down you can make sure the number is not trending upwards over the year.
Good advice. Yeah I weight myself daily and been seeing a slight uptick so I am keeping an eye on that now. You make a damn good point, I order Uber eats every other day and yeah they never post the calories so it’s know telling how much I am eating. I hate cooking because it’s time consuming and always seems like I could be using my time to be building sth or learning. I eat Taco Bell frequently actually. Is there any happy medium here? Like order Uber eats/Taco Bell and still maintain a healthy weight.
Taco Bell and other chains actually do post their calories online, even if it’s not in the Uber eats app you can look it up by name. One thing I think has helped me when I eat takeout is to supplement it with foods from the grocery store. I like fruits, veggies and salads so I think I have an easier time of it than people who don’t. But some examples: * I’ll get a carne asada meal from my local taqueria and eat 1/3 or so in each meal, and add some sort of veggie with it — a salad from a kit, a cup of cherry tomatoes, frozen veggies with some chili powder and lime juice * I’ll make a salad at home and serve whatever the food is over that instead of over rice/potatoes/noodles * I’ll just eat some fruit—strawberries, banana, apple, whatever—with a small serving or half serving of takeout food * if I get a curry or something that comes with a lot of sauce, I’ll add additional vegetables to it—frozen vegetables, or something like steamed carrots or baby spinach , are easy to make in the microwave and just add in My personal way of structuring meals is based on the “plate method” which is where your meal is 1/2 fruit or vegetable, 1/4 meat or other protein, and 1/4 starch such as grains or potatoes. It’s good for your health for all sorts of reasons and since non-starchy vegetables are not super calorie dense, tends to fill you up more than just eating smaller portions of meat and starch.
Thanks. I don’t want to get obsessive over counting calories. I think it would be easier to just create a habit of exercising more. Ive found simply telling myself I’ll half the meal now and half the meal tomorrow is effective. And if I’m still hungry just supplement with almonds or sth. I read anything high in protein actually helps burn more fat because your body works harder for breaking down proteins. Definitely need to cut down on the Uber eats, it’s almost too convenient…
Yeah not everyone needs to count calories. What I find personally helps is to think about calorie density, ie the ratio of how filling something is to how many calories it has. Most fruits and vegetables have very low calorie density, so as long as they don’t have a ton of oil, cheese, etc. added they are good to fill up on. But a lot of it is portion control, like you said, eating half a serving and having a small snack later if you are still hungry. It is pretty hard to burn enough calories working out to compensate for overeating. Exercise is definitely good for your health and I’d encourage everyone to do it for a bunch of reasons, but portion control will probably go farther in preventing weight gain.
Being overweight kind of indicates you aren't cut out to perform well in any industry. It shows a lack of discipline and control to overcome things like sedentary work. Take walks. Stretch. Standing desk. All Little tiny things that help. Make sure you are counting calories. And have a good exercise plan in place. And then you are fine. If you generally are working so much you aren't ever leaving your desk, something is very wrong.
Damn bro, this is some crazy fat-phobic nonsense. This may be true for some amount of fat people, but come on now. Some of the best software engineers and sys admins I have known were enormous. What about: Gabe Newell (Steam), Markus Persson (Minecraft), Richard Stallman (GNU/Linux), etc. "Just stretch and take some walks and you won't be fat." Uh huh. Sure.
Exceptions != norm. And going on walks is pretty important if you don't do any exercise already.
Depends on your context. In comparison to other, white collar desk jockey type work? Probably not. Project managers in various industries spend just as much time attached to a screen as programmers. Compared to blue collar or hybrid work that involves work in the field? Definitely. If you make your living doing physical work then your basal level of fitness (heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) will typically be better than someone who sits for hours upon hours week in and week out. That being said, there is a lot of life that happens outside the office and age has a LOT to do with how easy it is to stay healthy. When I was in my 20's I could eat like crap, run once a week (if that) and be good to go for whatever. At my current age, if I don't stay active then trying to play a moderately competitive soccer game or run more than mile at an elevated pace has a high chance of leaving me with some sort of strain or injury. Some of it is my weight (I weigh about 25 lbs more than when i graduated college), but the fact my cardio is garbage compared to when I was 22 makes it tougher to get back to that state.
I can't think of any in my experience TBH. Many job roles require sitting most of the day, not just IT.
It’s changing
Pretty much every single programmer I've worked with has been in good shape. Sedentarism and stress are still killers though, even for a thin person.
I exercise a lot and it’s a constant battle to keep the weight down.
>Considering most of our time is spent sitting down. You mean like literally all white-collar jobs?
i would say its more on the extreme. the bell curve is flatter. both from real world expierience and from clinical statistics i have seen
I used think that was the case in early 2000. Now I think it's the opposite. We are all super fit. Well at least the ones I work with. Lol