The Activity Paradox: Why Physical Jobs Seem So Much Worse For Us Than Exercise

Good news for those who don’t hit 10,000 steps a day: that number was actually picked as part of a marketing campaign, and not because there’s anything medically special about it. 

In fact, researchers think that we can significantly reduce our risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, and falls with 7,000 steps a day.

But not all of those steps (or any other exercise) might be equal, depending on the context in which we complete them, the activity paradox posits. 

What is the “activity paradox”? 

The “activity paradox”, or “physical activity paradox”, refers to a phenomenon that researchers noticed when looking at the health outcomes from exercise studies. 

Per the British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), while physical activity is good for our health, “most physical activity research is based on leisure-time physical activity (LTPA)”. 

LPTA would be something like going for a run on your time off. It’s not a part of your work, and you are not obliged to do it.

And, the BJSM added, lots of studies don’t look at “occupational physical activity (OPA)”, or movement you have to do as part of a physical job.

As opposed to LPTA, the effects of OPA may actually raise your risk of some conditions, like heart problems, long-term sickness and related absences, and even an increased risk of death.  

A 2021 study, which looked at more than 104,000 people, found that “higher leisure time physical activity associates with... all-cause mortality risk, while higher occupational physical activity associates with increased risks.” 

In other words, while exercise done in your free time is almost certainly good for us, physically demanding jobs might harm our health. 

In fact, another 2021 paper found that even the burnout-reducing potential of leisure-time activity might disappear when someone has a very physically demanding job. 

Not only might OPA bring health risks, but it could even reduce the benefits of LPTA, too.

Why does the “activity paradox” exist?

We can’t say for sure yet, but researchers have theories. 

Some think it’s down to money. People with less physical jobs and more leisure time and activity, one paper suggests, might be better-off, which we know can make being healthy easier.

The BJSM also shared that lifting heavy weights, not having enough recovery time (which they linked to increased blood pressure), doing low-intensity activity for too long, increased inflammation, and little autonomy over the type of movement workers do in physical jobs could be to blame.

But they say that we’ll need to do more research to find out more about the discrepancy.