Most of us expect you have to be fit to be a first responder.
Being overweight combined withunderlying heart disease in a high stress job means sudden cardiac events are more common.
Dr. Stefanos Kales of Harvard University tells society is getting heavier and heavier meaning some of the new recruits are already obese.
He says they might be able to struggle through doing the job now but they are recruiting for the next 20 to 30 years and after 10 to 15 years most of these people go on to be less fit and more obese.
Kales says firefighters wear a lot of heavy gear working at peak heart rates for long periods of time so common sense dictates that you should be physically fit to do the job.
Dr. Kales is in Saint John speaking at the Primary Occupational Healthcare Conference put on by Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick.
