Hot, sexy fireman fantasy

We all have a preconceived notion that firefighters are naturally very fit and incredibly sexy. And while this may be true in some cases (ask me about my FDNY encounter of 2005), I've noticed more and more that the fire fighters I see tend to be larger, overweight men. Now, I'm not here to take up the battle on fitness and obesity- I'll leave that to the experts. But my boyfriend and I would had the observation that our local firefighters were a little less hot sexy fireman and a little more... unhealthy. We just thought it was a little ironic at first but then we began to increasingly wonder if there are existing physical requirements for fire fighters and wondered what type of danger their lack of physical fitness posed not only to themselves, but to the general public.

It reminded me of something a visiting army officer said to my class one day during graduate school. He was talking about the role of the military (which is a whole other blog) but said that his only concern was whether or not a 130 pound woman would be able to lift his wounded body of 200 pounds out of danger, should he become injured. Now again, I could go on and on about this but won't. But this type of similar thought crosses my mind every time I see an unhealthy looking firefighter (or cop for that matter).

I decided in my infinite boredom to look do some internet searching and see if there are physical requirements. I mean, I would imagine so, right? While I didn't get very far and now have to run off to work, I did see this gem of a quote in an article published in Fire Engineering.

Despite the fact that firefighters’ jobs require vigorous physical activity under extreme conditions and present the stress of urgent life-threatening situations, studies indicate a high prevalence of sedentary lifestyles, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, certain malignancies, and chronic musculoskeletal complaints. Firefighters generally have lower physical fitness than workers in other hazardous occupations, including police officers and construction workers.

Thoughts? Concerns?