The Significance Of Physical Fitness In Law Enforcement Essay Example

attain and maintain fitness by living healthy lifestyles, which involves eating healthy foods, regular exercising, sufficient rest, and avoiding stress amongst other things.

It is a fact that health and fitness have been declining in the law enforcement fraternity. The outcome of this condition is seen in increased susceptibility to diseases and on-duty injuries, increased tendency to liability and loss of esteem from the public amongst other things. Police agencies have strong exercise programs that prepare officers for duty when newly joining the profession. However, very few agencies afford programs to maintain the health status that conforms to the physical needs of the work for the entire length of the officers’ careers. For this reason, officers become sickly over time and upon their retirement, most die within 2 and 5 years. Unhealthy lifestyle increases officers’ vulnerability to diseases, for instance, the use of tobacco, drugs or alcohol can cause them to develop complications associated with such substances. Guffey et al. note that a third of the personnel in law enforcement profession step down as a consequence of health issues. Many injuries that officers incur injuries that can be avoided or even rehabilitated through the right exercising as they go about their duties. To this end, an appropriate training program needs to be incorporated in the law enforcement agencies for the incumbents to ensure they maintain fitness.

What is the significance of physical fitness to law enforcement personnel? How can fitness be achieved? Small changes can effectuate considerable differences in people’s health. The choice of food is of great significance in this regard. Guffey, Larson, and Lasley investigated police officers’ lifestyle, diet, fitness, and their link to the

execution of duty and the occurrence of injury. The researchers found that susceptibility to injuries amongst the officers increased with age and body weight. Roughly one-fourth of the participants claimed to stick to the strict officers’ diet schedule, but the majority exceeded the limits set and subsisted on fast foods, which is leading cause of obesity for incumbent police officers. A portion of the participants stated that they exercised regularly to make up for the additional calories. This number is very insufficient.

The investigators also noted the significance of aerobic exercising in cutting down weight. They established that diet and injury were inversely proportional in that a healthy diet made the officers fit and less susceptible to injuries and vice-versa. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a healthy eating plan underscores vegetables, whole grains, fruits, fat-free milk products, low in added sugars, trans fats, cholesterol and saturated fats, and nuts and all within the daily calorie needs. The investigators surmised that correct diet was paramount to the well-being of law enforcement personnel. Police agencies should get in touch with nutritionists to make plans for healthy foods for their officers as well as exercise requirements. This study points out that a lot needs to be done within the law enforcement field to make officers adopt the right diets in terms of the quality and quantity of the food. Officers languish as they age because of incorrect diets and for this reason they cannot execute their work effectively.

In almost all settings, stress is often counterproductive. Lucas, Weidner, and Janisse employed the generalizability theory to compare and specify the sources of variance in stress linked to police work.

The investigators found that worker-stressor interactions significantly affected the perceptions of work stress amongst the officers. The potential for the environment and the tasks to induce stress is largely dependent on the person experiencing the stressor, for example, one officer may find it easier to deal with a crowd than deliver a death report while another may find the converse easier. The likelihood of one officer to manage a stressor depends greatly on his/her training to handle stressors. The stressor’s severity moderates this ability. Work-based strategies were found to work better in relieving work stress amongst the officers than individual methods. Work-based strategies should, therefore, be used more often in law enforcement agencies to deal with officer stress.

Officers, like any other regular worker, come under stress because of the situations they encounter at their workplaces. Police agencies’ managements, therefore, should not overlook this fact but organize work-based strategies for countering stress to look into the welfare of the officers within their divisions. Such efforts will go a long way in ensuring law enforcement personnel are stress-free and more importantly fit for work. In all, stress causes depression, anxiety, and short tempers amongst other problems that are injurious not only to the mental health but also the physical well-being. Avoiding stress is one way to maintain fitness.

Rest too is important in maintaining fitness. Senjo investigated the inducement of fatigue in officers. Though sleep requirements for different persons range between 6 and 10 hours, the study found that officers significantly stretch their working hours so that they are cannot have enough rest. The sleep hours for most ranges between 6 and 10 hours. Another interesting finding was

the fact that neither the officers nor their supervisors have any desire to reduce the overtime working hours for in as much as the officers need the extra pay, the administrators also need these officers to do extra work. This actuality adversely impacts the efforts to alleviate work fatigue. Ample rest is fundamental to maintain fitness and consequently execute duties satisfactorily. Officers must have sufficient rest to tackle stress if already present and avoid it if absent, reduce fatigue, and maintain fitness amongst other positive things that can be realized from the same. This rest will help them to execute their work more efficiently.

Physical exercise is also critical in maintaining fitness. Daryl Bissett, Jennifer Bissett, and Snell did a study to investigate incumbent officers’ views on the import of fitness test as well as physical agility. The officers overwhelmingly supported physical agility and fitness testing in the law enforcement profession as part of the hiring procedure; nonetheless, most were against the continued testing of incumbent officers. Additionally, more officers were predisposed to support voluntary fitness testing of incumbents as opposed to mandatory fitness testing. There was no significant variation between the responses from the male and female respondents concerning the matter of testing for fitness at hiring and for incumbents. Also noteworthy is the fact that the officers who were studied believed that character features such as dependability, self-control, and integrity were more significant to policing as compared to physical agility. Interpersonal skills and situational reasoning were also highly rated as critical to the work. The implication here is that the procedures used to select officers need to broaden beyond the traditional testing methods.

Officers downplay

the significance of physical readiness because of the sedentary nature of police work. Nonetheless, though the activities that need physical agility may be rare, they are often crucial. The investigators concluded by stressing the fact that physical fitness was important to police work and more should be done to ensure that officers remain fit throughout their career life.

In a separate study, Jamnik, Thomas, Bur, and Gledhill  sought to authenticate and develop a fitness test for correctional officer applicants (FITCO) and establish standards of acceptance. The investigation found that one of the most crucial, frequently occurring, and physically demanding correctional officers’ (COs) tasks is the dragging or carrying of an unconscious inmate or forceful relocation of an inmate who is resistant. A minimum of 2 COs often participate in this task. Both expend 50% of the force needed for the task. Physical fitness components tests lack face validity, i.e. they do not resemble the actual job and this view is so both to the arbitrators and the applicants. The performance of job simulation improves with experience whereas the ability to perform fitness tests decreases as one ages. Another issue of importance is that the acceptability standards for physical fitness tests are based on the incumbents’ characteristics as opposed to the performance of the job tasks. The standards have been highly criticized as they are neither age nor gender neutral. The implication, in this case, is that the fitness tests that officers have to take during hiring need to the revised accordingly to be more comprehensive, i.e. cater for a wider assortment of persons.

Physical fitness is significant to law enforcement personnel for it not only enables them

to be efficient in their work but also to live normal healthy lives. Officers incur more injuries while on duty when they are physically unfit. Unfitness sets in as the officers age, and probably become negligent of physical exercises and healthy diets and lifestyle. They eat more fast foods and do less or no physical exercises at all as there are no mandatory requirements for such things once they are employed. They may as well do extra work and deprive themselves of the necessary rest, and all these habits raise their susceptibility to stress. Healthy foods and lifestyle together with the appropriate physical exercise and sufficient rest are vital for officer’s well-being. For this cause, policing should do more to guarantee that officers are physically fit as long as their career lasts. Recruiting and maintain a healthy police force is in the best interest of both the public and the policing profession.