Frank Silo, a company driver for Covenant Transport, knows firsthand how obesity affects truckers, both professional and personally. His weight reached the point that he couldn’t even wear a wedding ring. “I had to hold my breath to tie my shoes,” Silo said, topping the scales at 268 pounds in summer 2007.

After looking at a photo himself and his wife while on vacation, Silo decided to change his lifestyle. “That was my turning point,” he said.

Silo started walking while waiting to be loaded or unloaded. He then got a dorm-size refrigerator for the truck, bought a George Foreman grill and began preparing healthier meals on the road, and when he did eat out, he would walk to restaurants with better food options. “I’m now eating healthier, sleeping better, and I feel better,” said Silo, who now weighs 217 pounds. “I’m more alert and feel I’m a safer driver.”

Silo, on the left in the photo above with fellow America’s Road Team member Ralph Garcia, who drives for ABF Freight System, outlined challenges that face drivers’ health at the International Conference on Commercial Driver Health and Wellness in Baltimore. These included time constraints associated with scheduling of loads, a lack of flexibility with hours-of-service compliance, lack of food choices on the road and problems with taking perishable foods in some company trucks that don’t have or don’t allow inverters to run appliances, as well as the demands of family life when at home.

From the owner-operator perspective, other obstacles often intrude. Maintaining affordable health insurance is one of those challenges.

“I pay close to $5,000 a year for health insurance, and I have a $5,000 deductible in order to keep rates down,” said Rick Ash, an owner-operator leased to HVH Transportation and chairman of the Trucking Solutions Group. “The first $5,000 for medical expenses every year comes out of my pocket. For owner-operators who are diagnosed with conditions such as sleep apnea and other conditions, this can be devastating.”