Health & Safety Spotlight: Peer Influence Demonstrated Through Personal Success (Adam’s Story)

March 12, 2025

Everyone within a crew at your fire department has the capacity to influence other members, not only through words, but actions regarding healthful choices. Positioning yourself as an example of good choices can lead to improvements, for not only you, but other members of your department that may be encouraged by your success. Developing quality habits through consistent choices will lead to progress on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

The importance of planning a routine around the structure of your schedule is paramount to success and progress toward your goals. All departments operate under different shift schedules and planning training, nutrition, and rest around them will improve your chances of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Structuring an exercise program to function on and off shift is key to developing a system that will be sustainable in your everyday life. Loosely planning meals depending on family life, overtime schedules, and life events can make progress seem difficult, but with forethought into each area you can produce a plan that can be implemented with success.

The quality of life as a firefighter is complex because it consists of a high stress career that must coincide with a personal life that could include different, and as challenging obstacles as a shift day could produce. Planning ahead is the most beneficial idea that a firefighter could complete based on their current situation. Eating schedules, training times, and recovery methods are all areas that need to be addressed in a plan to achieve optimal performance and health.

The main factor in planning is your current state of health and your health goals moving forward. Consulting your doctor about medical status, health concerns, and potential areas of improvement is the best starting point for any individual’s plan. After clearing that hurdle tailoring a plan to fit your needs, and most importantly, preference of lifestyle is key to success. Many people attempt to fit themselves into specific lifestyle plans whether it be restrictive diets, intense exercise programs, or strict philosophies that don’t suit the life and schedule of a firefighter. Successful plans will include activities you enjoy mixed with physical training during the week, nutritional plans that manage nutrient needs in the perimeters of our daily lives that are sustainable, and recovery options that can be completed at work and at home.

These are all areas that may take discussion and planning but are very achievable with appropriate advice from professionals in their fields. Unlocking the best version of you will not come from a one size fits all program or plan, but a collection of philosophies that can be maintained according to your lifestyle.
Take time to do some research, consult a physician, make a 100% commitment to yourself, and plan a personal wellness program that fits your schedule. Your personal wellness is important to you, your family, your job. Without a written plan and consistently working that plan will cheat you, your family, and your job out of a healthier you. Sticking to such a plan may be easier if you team up with another crew member and the two of you agree to hold each other accountable. Otherwise, start with you and your commitment, dedication, work, fun, and successes in making healthier life choices will make you a better you.

As the Department’s Compliance Officer, I personally witnessed Adam (a young firefighter) make a difference in the lives of his crew by quietly going about his day eating healthy snacks and encouraging them to make healthier food choices when preparing meals at the fire station or when going out to grab some fast food. His captain and others told me that they lost weight and started feeling healthier without even thinking about it. They just modeled what they saw Adam doing when it came to snacking around the fire station and/or followed some of his recommendations/choices on where to go for the healthiest fast food, or when planning a meal at the station what type of food they should buy when they go to the supermarket. — Rick Dangerfield