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Data & Research February 18, 2009
Advisers Eat Their Veggies
As a busy adviser, it might be easy to drop by and pick up some fast food, but how many of you actually do?
Reported by Ellie Behling
According to a recent study, most financial planners eat less than one serving of fast food per day, although almost 12% eat one to three servings. The study of 300 members of the Financial Planning Association by Vestment Advisors examined that and other health habits of advisers.
So how do advisers keep healthy? Many of you seem to eat your veggies. About 71% of surveyed financial planners have one to three servings of veggies per day, and 19% of them manage to eat three to five. More than half of the financial planners pop a multivitamin daily.
An overwhelming majority of surveyed advisers do cardio workouts (almost 90%). About 23% of advisers spend more than three hours doing cardio per week, and about 22% spend two to three hours. (It doesn’t specify whether that includes running from meeting to meeting.) Furthermore, almost three-fourths of advisers pump iron or some other kind of strength training each week.
Clients Giving You a Headache?
How much medication does your job require? More than half of respondents need pain killers on occasion; about 10% use over-the-counter pain medication (e.g. Advil, Tylenol) daily. It doesn’t specify which kind of prescriptions, but almost half (46%) of respondents said they use prescriptions daily. More than a quarter of respondents (about 27%) never use them.
Sleep might not come as easy these days. About a quarter of advisers said that work affects their sleep. The largest number get about 6 to 7 hours of sleep (60%). One-fifth of advisers get that full 8 hours, but about the same amount of advisers get only four to six hours.
Since the financial crisis, the report found an increase in adviser stress levels (see “Advisers Feel Market Stress’). Has the stress led them to drink? Apparently not yet. The large majority of surveyed advisers (about 73%) consume one or fewer alcoholic beverage per day. The rest reported having one to three drinks daily.
But advisers can’t go without their coffee. Most advisers (about 60%) consume one to three caffeine servings every day. That might be part of the reason why so many of the respondents (87%) say their energy level is enough to get them through the day—and, as you know, this business can be tiring.