The government spent $2.6 million making motivational phone calls to truckers trying to lose weight

(Image credit: Philippe Huguen/Getty Images)

published 30 July 2015

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has dropped $2.6 million (and counting) funding a five-year program through Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) to help long-haul truckers lose weight.

"Drivers experience multiple roadblocks to health, including laws permitting long work hours and an isolating job structure that restricts physical activity and dietary choices," the grant explains, so the researchers use "mobile computing technologies to provide training and feedback during a weight loss competition, and delivers motivational interviewing on cell phones." Participants also have the opportunity to win lottery prizes.

The grant notes that weight loss will reduce incidences of sleep apnea in truckers and therefore increase public safety — but surely that might be offset by all those cell phone calls on the road?

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.