This past summer, I had a wonderful experience interning with a company’s Supply Chain department. Since Supply Chain is my major, I could not pass up this opportunity, but what could be negative about this position? The only problem was that the headquarters was located about fifty minutes from my house. I live in a suburb northeast of Philadelphia and this company was located over the bridge in South Jersey. The drive was about sixty minutes in the morning and a horrible hour and fifteen minutes on the way home in rush hour traffic. One of my coworkers actually told me that he had read an article stating that if you commute more than thirty minutes to a job that you are actually losing money. In addition to that fact, I assumed that it could not be healthy to have such a long commute each day so I researched how a long commute can affect your health.
According to this Time article, a long commute where you are inactive can be harmful for several different reasons. A major issue is stress from a long commute. I could definitely see how that is unhealthy, especially since I had to sit in bad rush hour traffic each day instead of relaxing. It is also detrimental to your health to have a longer commute, because all of that time in a car is spent sitting. I also sat at my desk for hours at work all day so I was inactive for most of my day. The article claims that this can lead to weight gain which is also unhealthy of course.
It is clear that it is better for someone’s health to have a shorter commute to work. The article also gives several recommendations such as standing on public transportation instead of sitting and listening to relaxing music to relieve stress.
Hi
I also despise commutes, had traffic and its even worse. Although being inactive during commutes I believe if you don’t have snacks to munch on you wouldn’t have to worry about not being fit and risking weight gain. I found this article Code that shows how long americans wasted on commuting. The average commuter wastes 9 days a year on it. Nine days a year for say 20 years is 180 days wasted on ONLY commuting. That is a lot of time wasted in my opinion. I wouldn’t worry about not being active and healthy in the car during commuting but would consider all the things you could be doing and missing out on in those 9 days a year you spend solely on commuting. Maybe find somewhere closer and get back some time in your life.
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Hello,
I can see how someone would believe weight gain can happen due to sitting in a car all day, but what else are you doing? I feel like you’d only gain weight if you’re eating a lot on the road/not going to the gym or moving around. I will always be a fan of long car rides because I enjoy going places and exploring somewhere new. I don’t think you should listen to your co-worker and ignore the fact that weight gain can happen. If you have to sit in a car for longer than 30 minutes, so be it. I mean yeah you might get frustrated with traffic, but sometimes you can enjoy a ride that’s long with/without traffic. Here someone talks about traveling with a newborn in a long car ride- I think a baby is not going to worry about weight gain, so you shouldn’t either- http://getawaytips.azcentral.com/safe-travel-long-car-trip-newborn-1484.html