Obesity prevalence in the workforce is clearly increasing. Simultaneously, manual lifting/lowering loads, referred to as Vertical Handling Tasks (VHT) in this paper, are common in industries and services. Performing VHT exposes workers to physical overload, which can be measured using a psychophysical approach. Various risk factors can increase this overload, including individual factors such as workers’ Body Mass Index (BMI).
OBJECTIVE:
To study the possible effects of workers’ BMI and some task conditions on physical overload during VHT.
METHODS:
Psychophysical data were collected from 51 participants having different body constitutions (including non-obese, overweight and obese). The participants performed 6 VHT (3 different loads ×2 workstation configurations), during which they lifted and lowered a test-box between their knees and shoulders. For each task, they reported their perceived exertion using the Borg Category Ratio-10 (CR-10) scale.
RESULTS:
The results showed that the CR-10 scale is sensitive to the variation of the task conditions tested. However, the psychophysical data pointed to a tendency to decrease the perception of physical overload as workers’ BMI increases.
CONCLUSIONS:
This may compromise the validity of the application of psychophysical data as an ergonomic approach for Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSD) prevention in obese workers.
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