Why so many fat cops?

For a job in which you may be called to chase suspects, there seems to be a lot of police with great big guts. Now, I know this may be because of doughnuts, but why are departments allowing them to get this out of shape?

      • The short answer is because the police unions won’t let departments attach physical fitness requirements to employment. - MC

Also, they get used to being in terrific shape when they’re in training to become police officers, so they get used to eating an athlete’s diet; however, once they get the job, it’s actually pretty sedentary–they spend most of their day driving around, talking to people and doing paperwork. There’s really very little running around and jumping over fences. So, since they’re used to eating a lot and suddenly not exercising very much, they pack the weight on. Look at football players who’ve been out of college for a few years. Same deal.

I can’t speak for all police forces but that certainly was the case here in Chicago. However, a former co-worker of mine entered the Chicago Police force a few years back and the Chicago Police were just past their first year of requiring minimum physical fitness tests to get AND keep your job.

Of course, this ONLY applied to new recruits. Anyone hired prior to that year (1995 or so) were forever exempt from fitness requirements.

that is just messed up.

how can the management let them getaway with that?

Have you ever tried negotiating with a union?

Do you think the union leadership would remain after trying to tell several thousand overweight and woefully out-of-shape cops that they have to hit the treadmill?

It was silly to have no physical standards so the best they could do was to let the old, out-of-shape cops get away with it and impose the rules on the new guys who had no say in the matter.

Since I served for 10 years in Military Police units, I can safely say the following:

  1. In the military, you are required to meet certain minimum physical fitness requirements in order to keep your position as an MP. Even if all you do is ride around in a squad car all day long, you still have to go out and complete your daily physical training.

  2. In the civilian world, the police often do nothing but sit in their squad car for a whole shift while driving around and are not required to maintain an even limited physical profile.

The truth is, anybody who sits in their job all day long and never does any type of physical training, be it sports or whatever, is going to get out of shape and, sooner or later, fat.

Another possible reason - the long and odd hours mean that cops tend to eat fast food/junk food, as no place else is open.

Donuts, man, donuts! :slight_smile:

You think Homer Simpson looks like a policeman because of beer alone? No, it’s the free donuts!