**2.5 Research industrial worker**

Despite the incredible abundance of research showing how a healthy muscle mass leads to a healthier lifestyle, the worker today in general is weaker and heavier than the worker 25 years ago. One reason for this is that physical demands of many jobs have been decreased due to robots and other ergonomic assists [35, 36]. Automation is good, especially in industry. It contributes to a safer workplace. But automation greatly diminishes the physical demands of the job which has impacted the overall health of the industrial worker.

Since 1960, the percentage of moderate intensity physically demanding jobs in the United States has decreased from about 50% to 20% in 2010, but the light intensity jobs have increased from 38% to about 55% [35]. Sedentary jobs increased as well from 15–22%. Most of these changes took place because of automation. This means the amount of physical work done by today's worker has greatly diminished.

Unfortunately, the less physically active the worker becomes, the greater the risk for injury and certain diseases. Some of this increased risk occurs because of an increase in body weight (fat weight) tied to the loss of muscle mass and strength.
