Drop the donut and put your hands in the air!! That's what dietitian, Rana Parker, is telling officers in the LAPD. The police department hired her as their full time diet coach.
The Department is cracking down on overweight officers with the hope that it will make them better at their jobs and potentially save more lives. Fit officers can more easily sprint after criminals, feel better about themselves, and help improve the image of the force.
Instead of hitting up a drive-through, Parker suggests keeping energy bars, fruit, or a peanut butter sandwich in the cruiser. She works mostly with recruits, in hopes of in-multi-graining them with good eating habits.
Since police departments across the country are relaxing recruiting requirements, including body fat percentage, this policy might be necessary.
Do you think the LAPD's plan to make sure everyone in Los Angeles has a nutritionist is a good use of taxpayers' money? Could healthy officers slim down the state budgets, since taxpayers pay for their health care?
Petite Mendigote
True Religion
Andrea Conti
my friends and i always giggle about fat American policemen, how on earth are you gonna chase cops with a doughnut stomach.
1How else can L.A. keep up the national pretense that everyone out here has a smokin' bod? I don't think one nutritionist is going to bankrupt the city.
2America has 10 million obese people apparently that's 5/6 of my country's population. Ick.
3i think this is great! LA is doing a lot of proactive things in the health and environmental arena. being from the bay area my knee jerk reaction is to hate on LA - but the city is involved in a lot of innovative programs like this one. i hope it catches on elsewhere.
4I grew up outside of Los Angeles and lived there as an adult for about ten years. I don't think hiring a dietician or team is an intelligent choice on the part of the LAPD in light of the choices that are available to them now.
The department can simply implement a fitness code and refer officers to specific sites where fitness and diet information can be found online. They can also implement a work-out buddy system where fit active officers can volunteer to mentor officers that need to get in shape which build comradery and moral. These officers also have full medical coverage where they can be referred to a dietician by their primary physician if they feel they really need to consult with one directly.
I say vote NO on LAPD dieticians.
5Excellent idea. I have seen really out of shape cops. Huffing and puffing just to breathe. Police work is physical. Can't they make minimum fitness requirements? Does anybody know the answer to that?
6yeah a full time salaried dietician sounds a little absurd/extreme to me too...
7I think just insitituting a physical fitness test much like the military would be far less costly and far more effective.
8I agree Cabaker. Just like you have to pass an accuracy test, you should be able to be fit enough at all times to chase someone or, even better, do that thing where you jump to the ground while shooting two guns simultaneously with your partner like Bad Boys.
9I don't think a physical fitness test would solve the problem exactly. Departments are lowering their physical fitness standards to address recruitment shortages.
10lowering the standards to address shortages only gets you lower quality people... i wonder how actively they are recuiting the people are getting out of the military and are already in great shape...
11Except people often sue because they find something in the fitness test that's potentially discriminating to them, or someone really good doesn't pass the fitness test by a couple of points...
12Depending on what the dietician is making, she's just as cost effective as having to administer the tests, re-test people and deal with all the arguing about why people really should have gotten better ratings on the test.
One nag, walking around smacking people in the gut.
That's exactly what we've done with education standards cabaker27 and look where it's gotten us.
13Why not--I'm sure taxpayer money is going to a lot of other random things that probably aren't very helpful.
14Now if we could just get the cameras to stop videotaping their workout programs.... (The beating a few stories ago)
15...not that those should be guidelines to spend taxpayer money ("it's being spent on other things anyway"), but at least this is addressing a particular problem that apparently needs a solution.
16why not try it out the dietitian for a 2 years in conjunction with other things such as regular fitness tests and more emphasis on healthy eating? if the dietitian doesn't work out, then fire him/her!
17Well Steph, in my experience with the military PFTs, I've never seen that.
However, if you fail a PFT then you get put into a physical conditioning platoon where basically you just work out like crazy until you pass the test, and from what i understand its a pretty miserable place to be.
These are our COPS, they're supposed to be defending us! Shouldn't they be tough enough to pass a physical fitness test and not whine and threaten to sue??
18Yeah I like my cops strong and robust!
19i bet you do hypno!
keep it on your pants!
20*IN* your pants... whoa, that could have a completely different meaning...
21"Instead of hitting up a drive-through, Parker suggests keeping energy bars, fruit, or a peanut butter sandwich in the cruiser."
Duh. I'm not a "diet coach" and I could have easily told you that these things are way healthier than fast food. It seems like a waste of money simply because most people could easily eat better on their own, they just choose not to. Giving these cops the motivation to eat well and stay healthy seems like it would go further to me.
22They wouldn't have to hire anyone specifically to administer the tests. It would just be another duty of the cops they already have. I think it's an excellent idea cabaker. Are we sure though that they don't already have a PRT? (physical readiness test)
23Harmony i think they do, but i think its administered like once when you sign up and then never again.
Either way i think its very inconsistent, and they should do it based more on like what the military does.
24Yeah they should be tough enough, but that doesn't mean they don't whine like anyone else when they have to do something unpleasant. One dietician on staff is proactive - here's how you do it right. A test just says whether you have done it right or not. There's a physical test when you join LAPD, but I don't know if or how often they test officers after that.
25I know a girl named Susan who I shoot pool with. She's gone through the academy but San Francisco PD says she needs to loose 20lbs. In her case since she's naturally stout and is clearly very physically able despite being over the weight requirement I think a case by case exception should be made.
26hypno there are def. variable. i know my husband has failed the weight test on his fitness test because has too much muscle, so they do a tape measurement body fat percentage...
personally i think everything should be body fat and not weight, but thats just me!
27oooooh too much muscle... cab's got her a manly man.
28cabaker you answered the question before I got to it.
29That's exactly right Cab! Muscle weighs more than fat. It only makes sense to measure body fat and not weight.
30When I lived in Santa Fe I applied for an EMT spot there. The paramedic said kinda condescendly that I'd have to pass a physical fitness test. Although, I don't think he had seen his shoes in years!
31thats right hands off ladies! he's mine!
32my city recently did something like this. They hired someone to help them learn how to make good choices and they all started working out and then had a big thing where they showed off their old uniformas compared to their new ones. I don't know why we assume that because they're police they know how to make good food choices. Most of america is overweight and doesn't make good food choices, so it makes sense to me that a few cops would be too. I think it's a good idea to implement the fitness stuff like talked about above, but diet is just as important and if they need help then why not?
33Renee thats a good idea, have a like a Biggest Loser to start it off!
34I think it's great when places do a gym incentive program. And yeah, anyone could use good nutrition advise.
35Cab the hospital here has a program called exactly that! "Who's the biggest loser?"
36Harts have you ever watched the show The Biggest Loser??
Its such a great show, I love it because its one of like 2 reality shows not based on making an ass of yourself...
Basically its a bunch of people who compete to see who can lose the most weight through diet and exercise... it always motivates me to go work out!
37The fitness tests make perfect sense to me- if it works for the military, it should work for the cops.
38I LOVE the biggest loser! Although I have to say the title is kind of insulting. I am so proud of them though. It's very motivating!
39HF I can't believe Ali won!! I was cheering on my couch! Finally a female biggest loser!
Though i have to say, i think she looked way TOO skinny at the finale and I hope she puts on a few.
i would KILL to work out with jillian just once, though I think she would make me cry!
40Liberty I just read what you said about recruitment shortages and it surprised me. I know its very difficult to become a Chicago police officer, there are way too many applicants for the number of spots. Are a lot of places having recruitment shortages?
41I prefer working out in that way. Bootcamp style I mean. There is something about that authoritative voice that makes me do more than I usually would!
42Cab, no, I've never seen it. I've heard of it though. Actually I only heard of it maybe some months ago. :embarrassed: I'm not really up on what's going on with tv stuff. I don't get local channels. I've NEVER seen American Idol! Whoa, am I in the dark or what????!
My friend who works at the hospital here told me about the gym program they have and what it's called. I think that's when I heard about the show.
43Dang! I hate when I screw up the smileys!
44HF I could so make a dirty joke from that. But I wont!
45It applies cabaker. It applies.
46I'm sorry my comments are a little dirty today.
47I know when Bernard Parks became police chief in L. A. he was on a crusade to get rid of overweight cops. He immediately threw a good number of the porky ones on bikes for bike patrols. The conversion was obvious and funny to watch thick cops on bikes all of a sudden.
48It's even more funny when they all come at you peddling their bikes. Pudgy or not.
49In WA when I was in going through the State Patrol training we were told we had to pass a physical fitness test every year, and it was a hard one. Why not just do that?
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