“I don't want to say that we've completely explained the obesity epidemic…but clearly work-related physical activity has decreased dramatically, and it appears to have impacted obesity in this country.”

—TIMOTHY CHURCH, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and lead author of a new study associating the decline of physical activity in the modern workplace and the steady increase in obesity in the U.S. In 1960, one out of two jobs required moderate physical activity; today only one in five do. The other 80% of the American workforce remains sedentary all day. The shift means that the average worker is burning 120 to 140 fewer calories a day at work. [via USA Today]