Ajay Bejalwar , Rashmi Shahu

Abstract

There are many Rice Mills in Vidarbha. Gondia-Bhandara districts comprises of about 350 Rice mills. The climatic conditions and environment working in Mills, lifting, carrying and depositing the sacs of paddy and rice are carried out mostly manually by the workers results delay in production. The findings of present study regarding BMI, BMR, RMR, heart rate, energy expenditures, oxygen consumption, PCI were compared with the standards values specified by doctors/WHOs. It was observed during loading/unloading of sacs workers’ heart rate rises substantially accordingly energy expenditures, oxygen consumption also increases. This reduces the workers efficiency leading to occupational hazards. The use of the BMI shows that how much an individual’s body weight departs from what is normal or desirable for a person of his or her height, it was found within the normal ranges however 16 subjects (12 men and 4 women) were in the range of 23.0 to 25.00 which would had moderate health risk of developing heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes. There was a significant difference in RMR of Men and Women. BMR was higher than RMR. The study reveals in Vidarbha, available manpower is less than the requirement compels most of the workers to work more than 8–10 hours per day continuously in awkward postures with the load of paddy and rice sac results in heart rate rises substantially accordingly energy expenditures, oxygen consumption also increases. This reduces the workers efficiency leading to occupational hazards. The result shows the PCI was relatively invariant in successive passes for the same subject. PCI should be low as it indicates an energy-efficient gait, and it also determine if a particular therapeutic intervention affects overall gait performance.

Keywords- Oxygen consumption, Energy expenditure, Heart rate, BMI, BMR, RMR, PCI.