Concerns police officers are 'too busy to eat'

MP and Federation rep speak out over impact of workload on officers' diet and health.

Police officers are being forced to forgo food all day in some cases because they are too busy to eat, an MP has claimed.

Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP for Rochdale, said he feared for the welfare of officers who had told him excessive demands on their time meant they were effectively having to either fast while on duty or grab junk food and hurriedly consume it "on the run".

Mr Danczuk told PoliceOracle.com: "That is what has been said to us by serving officers. It's a pretty desperate situation."

He added: "It concerns me that if they can't stop and have something to eat they are clearly overworked, and they won't be performing at their best. If they are eating on the run it is also a far from ideal situation. Something has got to change."

Greater Manchester Police Federation Chairman Ian Hanson said officers were often not able to take breaks to eat.

He said: "Police officers realise that this will sometimes happen, but what we are hearing now is that it is becoming, in some cases, accepted that they are not getting any time to have a break.

"Can you give me an example of any other job where people are routinely expected to work for 10 hours and are not having the opportunity to have a break in the middle of that?"

He said officers' health could be put at risk if they had to either keep working on an empty stomach or quickly eat convenience food.

Greater Manchester's Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd has acknowledged that budget cuts have impacted on police resources in the city.

'Macho culture'

Not eating for a single day can cause low blood sugar levels that can lead to anxiety, sweating, headaches and even blurred vision.

Food expert Gillian Riley said a "macho culture" could be partly to blame if officers were not eating properly.

Ms Riley, a food writer and the author of several books including The Oxford Companion to Italian Food, said: "The scary thing is that if they are undernourished they will not be able to do the job adequately.

"There is this whole macho thing of 'oh, I'm too busy to eat', and the ubiquity of junk food, which is another factor.

"They might go off on a job because they are 'too busy to eat', or just eat some junk food at their desk, when the common sense thing is to go off on their own for a short while and get a salad or something."

She added that a poor diet could lead to a lack of physical fitness among police officers - and said being able to take breaks to eat properly was also important from a psychological perspective.

Article courtesy of Josh Loeb of: www.policeoracle.com