Elevated Obesity Prevalence in Male Truck Drivers in England: A Comparison with Men in the Same Socioeconomic Classification from the Health Survey for England

Truck drivers face occupational and environmental barriers to maintaining healthy lifestyles. Yet no studies have directly compared overweight and obesity prevalence in UK truck drivers with a socioeconomically comparable population. We compared the prevalence of obesity and overweight or obesity between male truck drivers (n=625) and a sample of men from the Health Survey for England (HSE) (n=485), restricted to the same socioeconomic classification, and adjusted for age and region. Compared with the HSE sample, truck drivers had a higher prevalence of obesity (aPR 1.29, 95% CI 1.09-1.53) and overweight or obesity (aPR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06-1.21). These findings suggest that the prevalence of obesity is greater in a sample of English truck drivers than in socioeconomically comparable men from the 2019 HSE, highlighting the need for tailored interventions to tackle obesity within this occupation.