The impact of shift work on nutritional status of police officers

Abstract

The aim of this study was to show the extent of the influence of the shift work on nutritional status and physical activity of police officers. The research included 130 healthy police officers. The respondents were divided into two groups. The first group included 82 officers who were working the first shift. The second group included 48 officers who were working the 12hour shift. The study used customized questionnaire consisting of questions regarding leisure-time physical activity, self-report lifestyle activity level, body height, body mass, and derived body mass index (BMI). The ANOVA analysis showed that the first shift had significantly lower BMI (2.57 kg/m 2 , p = 0.004) than the 12-hour shift. The results showed that physical activity is strongly associated with lower values of BMI in both groups (p < 0.01). Regarding the correlation between age and years of service, only the 12-hour shift showed coherency (p < 0.01). Although there was no difference in the level of physical activity between police officers from different shifts, declines in physical activity were associated with higher values of BMI.

Differences in Body Composition across Police Occupations and Moderation Effects of Leisure Time Physical Activity

“…The lower body fatness of sedentary SAU officers may lie in the recruitment and service (i.e., employment) requirements as well as more frequent fitness assessments that officers must meet in order to remain in service. This demonstrates importance, as studies suggest that police officer LTPA tends to decrease, while BMI and body fatness tend to increase, with the time spent in service [12,15,42,43]. Obesity has been found across police populations [44][45][46], whereby the effort to battle this issue has been based mainly on the implementation of exercise programs [6,17,18].…”

“…Body fatness, indicated through measures such as percent body fat (%BF), waist circumference, and body mass index (BMI-body mass (kg) divided by body height (m 2 )), increases due to lack of physical activity, sedentary work, and shift work in police officers [12][13][14][15][16]. In contrast, sufficient physical activity, planned exercise, and healthy nutrition are related to reductions in body fat mass and %BF and increases in percent of skeletal muscle mass (%SMM) and skeletal muscle mass index (SMMI) [6,[16][17][18].…”

“…Police officers' daily duties influence their body composition as well as the frequency and volume of their physical activity at work and during leisure time. The sedentary activities an officer is required to do on a daily basis (e.g., deskwork) can leave little available time for physical activity and/or exercise due to operational work overload [15,20,21]. On the other hand, police tactical personnel, such as special weapons and tactics, antiterrorist units and, in some countries, firefighters, are normally selected based on their level of physical fitness [3].…”

Accuracy and Predictive Capability of Body Mass Index in Evaluation of Obesity and Body Fatness Level in Police Officers

“…Subsequently, these tasks increase the amount of sedentary time at work, which may contribute to a loss in physical fitness over time (Green & Gates, 2014). This, coupled with shift work and a lowered amount of leisure-time activity may lead to increased body fatness (Ćopić et al, 2020;Vuković et al, 2020). Consequently, it contributes to the prevalence of obesity among police officers (Sorensen et al, 2000;Boyce et al, 2008;Kukić & Dopsaj, 2016;Dawes et al, 2019;).…”

“…Considering this, police agencies have been working on development of assessments, treatments and prevention policies to address the negative changes in obesity related to work that is more sedentary and life habits of police officers. Body mass index (BMI) has been used extensively to assess the general health and anthropometric status within law enforcement populations (Dawes et al, 2016;Čvorović et al, 2018a;Ćopić et al, 2020). In general, BMI represents the ratio of body mass relative to body size, but without giving specific information on the body composition (Rothman, 2008;Provencher et al, 2018).…”