Noticeably, a lot of active and even retired seafarers have big bellies. This has been almost a pandemic so to say affecting the maritime profession. Having been experienced the life at sea, I got to question this seemingly natural phenomenon. There are a lot of factors that results seafarers having big bellies. And some of them are just natural in our nature of work. What are they? Let’s take a look.
- Stress – This is normal for us. We are constantly in stress not just from work but also emotional stress. Stress is much prevalent when in port during operations, docking and undocking in unfavorable hours, etc.
- Sugary foods and beverages – we cannot demand what we’ll going to eat. Though we have choices but it is narrowed by the availability of food and the menu choices of the ship’s cook. Oftentimes also, we found ourselves eating chocolate cookies and drinking coca cola.
- Eating late at night – 3rd mate, his watchman and dayman guys are prone to eating late at night. While at sea or in port operations, some of us just couldn’t avoid visiting the mess room to eat right before we take our rest. There are cases that we can’t sleep due to hungriness and the only solution is to feed that angry stomach.
- Metabolic rate decreases – as we get older, our metabolic rate decreases, thus, food is not digested as fast as it used to be when we’re younger. We cannot control this as this is natural but one thing that can boost our metabolism is by drinking green tea.
- Alcohol intake – as stated in one of my blog, we are fond of alcohol intake – beer, wine and the like. Moderate quantity can lower risk of cardiovascular diseases but high alcohol intake may lead to other health problems. Excess calories from alcohol contribute greatly to the development of belly fats.
- Not enough sleep – this is also very common for seafarers at sea due to job and operation demands, emergencies, drills and bad weather. We all wish to have an on/off button to enable us to sleep and wake the time we want to maximize rest.
- Lack of activity – Master, Ch. Engineer and 2nd Officer normally lack of physical activity in a normal day basically because of office and paper works. Chief Officer and 3rd Officer have paper works but their job engage in some physical activities. Deck crew, galley and engine personnel all normally have some sort of physical activity during the course of the entire day.
What to do?
There are other factors contribute to having a big belly but these 7 factors are almost already a default setting when we are onboard. However, these are always not the case for some. I have sailed with colleagues who constantly hitting the gym and maintaining that slim form. So to conclude, a good healthy diet with proper exercise and good rest on vacation will help burn down those fats accumulated the entire contract if unable to do so onboard.