Research-study of 400 long-haul truck drivers and impacts of diet on safe driving outcomes
(Article from OHS Alert, 24/6/2021)
Promoting healthy diets among workers can have a positive impact on safety performance, according to researchers, who found truck drivers who eat more vegetables and coarse grains are less likely to exhibit dangerous driving.
Their study of nearly 400 long-haul truck drivers found those with diets rich in vegetables and staple foods like flour-based products, grains, dairy products and eggs scored highly on a positive driving behaviour scale.
Workers with diets high in animal-derived products or snacks like fried food, desserts and sweet drinks, reported more dangerous driving behaviours like "errors, lapses and violations".
The latter also experienced more fatigue, suggesting the connection between poor diet and poor driving behaviour can be explained by the effects of fatigue, the researchers from the CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioural Science in China say.
Professional truck drivers are exposed to work environments that promote unhealthy lifestyles, with work-rest patterns that are conducive to sleep deprivation and unhealthy food habits like the high intake of processed foods and low intake of fruits and vegetables, they say.
"The practical implication of the findings is that dietary management could help truck drivers feel less fatigue and drowsiness, thus promoting safe driving and decreasing traffic crashes," the researchers say.
"The findings of this study indicated that vegetables and staple food patterns negatively predicted fatigue."
Fatigue is a critical factor for road safety, causing 20 to 50 per cent of road crashes among professional drivers, the researchers stress.
They say their results are in line with a previous study of shift workers showing decreased fatigue was associated with higher carbohydrate intake while increased fatigue and longer sleep durations were associated with a higher intake of fat.
"High consumption of snacks is considered to be associated with irregular timing of meal intake and disturbance of metabolism, which might negatively affect many tasks that demand vigilance, alertness and concentration," they say.
The researchers add that previous studies found "truck drivers' inclination to avoid too many high-fat and high-cholesterol foods was positively related to their tendency to safe driving".
They note dietary habits are "linked to personality traits" like impulsiveness, which have "an important influence on driving behaviour" and are important predictors of dangerous driving.
Healthy dietary habits like the high consumption of fruit and vegetables and fruit are "positively related to openness and conscientiousness", which negate dangerous driving behaviour like aggression and risk-taking, they say.
Effects of dietary patterns on driving behaviours among professional truck drivers: the mediating effect of fatigue. Yan Ge, et al, China, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, online first June 2021, doi: 10.1136/oemed-2020-107206.
