A Prospective Study Of Health-related Lifestyle Changes Among Police Recruits.

PURPOSE: Several studies have indicated that law enforcement officers (LEOs) are at increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Behavioral risk factors could partly explain the disparity in cardiovascular risk as LEOs are known to generally display poor health-related lifestyles. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the health-related lifestyle of police cadets and to assess changes in the health behaviors of police recruits upon entering the police forces. METHODS: A survey-based prospective study was conducted to meet our objectives. A total of 190 police cadets completed an online questionnaire assessing their leisure-time physical activity level, diet quality, sleep hygiene, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, and stress level. One year following their graduation from the basic police training program, participants were invited to complete the questionnaire once again. RESULTS: Our results indicate that police cadets generally display healthy lifestyles with very few cadets being physically inactive (6.3%), cigarette smokers (6.3%), reporting insufficient sleep duration (16.1%), and being categorized as obese based on BMI (9.5%). However, paired-sample comparisons highlighted significant decreases in the weekly minutes of leisure-time physical activity (p < 0.01), fruit and vegetable intake (p < 0.01), sleep duration (p < 0.01), and sleep quality (p = 0.03) at the follow-up. Likewise, significant increases in fast-food consumption (p < 0.01) and BMI (p < 0.01) were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our results emphasize the importance of promoting healthy behaviors among LEOs during the early stage of their career, a period often marked by long working hours and frequent night shifts.