Hundreds of Texas state troopers will need to shrink their waistlines by December or face discipline from the Department of Public Safety, according to DPS documents obtained by the Dallas Morning News.
The department wants its 4,000 officers to maintain "command presence" by keeping waistlines below 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women. Those who exceed the threshold are required to start recording and sharing their weight loss with the department.
Over 200 officers have failed the requirement – though all except two had passed the department's other physical fitness tests, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Those who still fail the requirement by Dec. 1 can't be promoted or take on side jobs in uniform, according to documents shared with the Chronicle. Some will also be barred from working overtime or removed from enforcement duties altogether, taking them out of the field at a time when Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying state troopers to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of Operation Lone Star.
To avoid those sanctions, officers have pledged in their individualized "fitness improvement plans" to prepare their own meals and drink less diet soda, among other goals.
The waistline rule began in 2019 and drew a lawsuit that year from the Texas Department of Public Safety Officers a*sociation. The organization, which represents 4,700 DPS employees, criticized the policy as "demeaning" and unrelated to performance. After pandemic delays through 2020, the department began using the new measures to evaluate officers last September.
In a statement to the Chronicle, a DPS spokesperson said the department would reevaluate the rule in August but pointed to the department's overall fitness policy to justify the waistline requirement.
"There is not a great deal that others can do to improve an officer’s level of health and fitness," the policy objective states. "Unfortunately, good health and fitness does not 'just happen'; therefore, personal goals must be established and effort must be put forth to achieve them."
Hundreds of Texas state troopers are being told to slim down or step down from enforcement duties
A controversial policy requires over 200 officers to share their weight loss progress...
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