Given that the number is about 66% for the general adult population those numbers are remarkably good. I would have guessed it was higher as I see plenty of tubby guys in uniform around here. Not sure what branch they are though.

I'm not a martinet when it comes to these sorts of things, and wasn't even before I retired from active duty, but if I'm a commander and I'm being told that 10 percent of my force isn't within standards my head would be in danger of exploding, that's all I'll say. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

What is worrisome is the article says that the armed forces is going to be moving away from mainly using BMI to evaluate fitness. In theory nothing wrong with that in practice likely moving the goalposts. The other thing is how quickly rates of overweight have gone up.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Policy is written such that it pretty much ensures some percentage of people will be overweight at any given time. There's only so much a commander can do (in the Navy at least) when a Sailor is out of standards. Sailors must pass a height and weight evaluation and a fitness test every 6 months. The height and weight evaluation consists of simple weight vs height calculation. If you are outside the standard for that, you get measured around the waist. If your waist is greater than 39" (men) or 35.5" (women), then you get a second measurement. This time they do waist and neck, and calculate a rough body fat percentage. If you fail all three phases, then it's a "failure."

A Sailor can not be processed for administrative separation for failure meet standards, unless they have failed twice in a period of three years. So if you fail either the height /weight or the fitness test twice during the most recent three year period, you "shall" be processed for separation. However, that doesn't mean you'll actually be separated, because the separation board might find that your failure is out of your control, or that you are in a critical rating for the Navy to retain, etc.

Because of the requirement to wait for multiple failures, and the time it takes to process someone for separation, you could be carrying someone who is basically out of standards for their entire tour, and not really be able to get rid of them.

The standards and process is actually a little harder in some ways than it was a few years ago (used to be you needed to see 3 failures in a three year period, now you can separate after only two), but easier in others (they just recently introduced the waist measurement - so long as your waist is under 39 inches, you're fine, no matter how fat, short, tall you are).

10% is high, and if I had ever conducted a Fitness testing cycle and the results were 10% failures, I would have been pissed and unhappy, but not hugely shocked. To have 10 people out of 100 fail either the height/weight or the fitness test would have been surprising, but wouldn't have been shocking. That said, I never was at a command that came close to that percentage.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

middle guy is definitely armoured division. Why carry your kit, when your kit can carry you? Death before dismount baby!

    Would not be surprised to see the military follow the way of the airlines. Fairly tight weight stds in the past gave way to social pressure that allows some portly flight attendants, with the new requirements being if the individual can do the job. More women in the military will bring this same mindset to those outside that can pressure military muckety-mucks to make it happen. Just a matter of time...or we can come up with a pill that makes us all perfect physical specimens, that's what I'm counting on. ;)

I wish they'd hurry up with that pill. I need it real bad. lol

Hahahahahaha! Exactly so! :-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Not surprised. I agree with what slowguy said.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

Well one of them had to be he fattest. Would you have been happier if say the Navy was the fattest branch?

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

I was USAF but I worked with quite a few US Army troops while I was flying A-10's. When a "large" Army guy walked in, it was about a 99% chance that he was a tanker. It wasn't often that you'd see an overweight infantry trooper.

But back in the 1980's, we had a lot of chubby guys in the USAF, more so than the Army. I don't know what the stats were but we didn't really bother enforcing much in the way of standards. The USAF is definitely more fit today than they were 30 years ago.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

It wouldn't have bothered me as much, mostly because I know Sailors. ;-)

Army and Marine Corps are the ground combat element, for the most part (composed of combined arms in the form of ground, arty, air and armor, of course). You should at least look fit, not fat. LOL!

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I blame chow hall food. And the Three Bs ("Bread, Baloney, Beer"). ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Gives a new meaning to Get Some

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

I'm surprised that obesity has only doubled since the 60's. Something went wrong in the 80's. Thanks Reagan!

Trends in Overweight and Obesity among Adults, United States, 1962–2010



â–  Overweight
â–  Obesity
â–  Extreme obesity

Does active combat have fitness checks?

Two photos below depict a Depression-era family (ca. 940). One thing stands out: they had to work hard just to gain subsistence-level diets. In the first photo, of the family eating dinner, I also wouldn't necessarily say that their meal was all that calorically low or healthful in the dietetics sense of the word. Just that everyone in that family worked from sunup until sundown, most likely.

Contrast that with the third photo of a modern-day fast food meal and the kids eating it. We've made huge economic strides since 1960, when the true poverty rate was around 22 percent in the U.S. (it was higher in much of the rest of the world). It hit a low of about 11 percent in 1974 and it's hovered around 14-16 percent since -- and seems intractably stubborn to any measures taken to lower it.

U.S. economic growth, along with the growth of more 'free time' for the average worker, both occurring over the last 50 or so years, has done a couple of things, at least in my opinion.

1. It's put a relatively larger amount of money in peoples' pockets.

2. It's led to more time to devote to leisure-time activities, including eating foods of all types, especially "fast food." The growth of places like McDonald's and KFC, etc. wouldn't have been possible without these two conditions, it seems to me.

And look what it's done to us, and to our military. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Too, too funny. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Active combat ("real combat") is its own fitness check, believe me. It's been my experience that the fitter you are, the more effective you'll be in ground combat and special operations-related combat activities and the greater will be your chances of survival.

I'm not a naval operations expert (that would be Mr. Slowguy), but fighting your ship and keeping it from sinking and in the fight if it takes damage from, say, an anti-ship missile or from an air attack might sometimes depend on how relatively fit the Sailors and Chiefs and officers are when it comes to damage control and the ability to handle firefighting tasks and the stressors that come with all that.

I'd say the same is most likely true for the Air Force and its people. I haven't yet seen an obese F-15 fighter jockey, to tell truth. ;-) And the Air Force PJs and combat air controllers I've known have all been supremely fit.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

How do you define poverty? The government definition of poverty is only used to determine eligibility for benefits i.e. not that many people live in poverty and since the threshold is tied to CPI it is extremely unlikely we will ever get the poverty rate lower because of math.

This is not a surprise.
If you look at where the US military recruit from.
Income and education play a role in wight and health.

The US military has always been famous for being heavy, even back in the days I was in the military.

Every fighter squadron I was ever in (1977-96) had at least one guy who was "participating in the flight suit stress test program" or who was referred to as "the Michelin man". Supposedly, the best physique for pulling lots of "g's" was a short fat guy who smoked a lot of cigarettes (or at least that was the thought.) Our annual PT test was supposed to be a 1.5-mile run (in something like 14 minutes). If it wasn't simply pencil whipped we'd fill that square by getting together on a Friday afternoon to play flag football while drinking a keg of beer.

Things have gotten better in the USAF.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I think the widespread availability of low cost high calorie food that took off in the '70s probably has a lot to do with it. Basically anytime you're hungry these days you can get a lot of calories for not very much money.

Back in the day, you ate when mom fixed a meal and that was what and when you ate.

81st Stryker Brigade - Washington National Guard. I wonder how much the ARNG is skewing the Army result.

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LLLEEEEEEEEEEEERRRROOOYYY JEEENNNNNKKKIIINNNNNS!!!

http://www.newsinenglish.no/...dily-gaining-weight/

You never did answer if you felt threatened by Forge's "threat."

My wife, who's in the Guard, says probably by a lot. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I've never been the military, but I've worked with some Rangers and special warfare types, and they said physical fitness is huge in places like Afghanistan. And it's the opposite of what you might think. You'd think the Afghan fighters who grew up in the mountains would have an advantage, being skinny, well-acclimated, and not weighed down by all the shit in the modern foot-soldier's kit (which is seriously a lot of stuff). But apparently western/modern warfighters are just so much healthier and better fed that when it comes down to speed or endurance on foot, we still win almost every time. I think their rule of thumb was something like 15 minutes. E.g. if some dudes were trying to escape by running through mountain terrain, they'd be good for 15 minutes, then they'd be done.

Of course the guys I was talking to were far from average.

Running and gunning, running firefights, etc. require that you be able to "outcycle" the opposing force (i.e observe, orient, decide, act and then repeat, staying ahead of the enemy's reactions and forcing him to react to what you're doing rather than the other way around). To do that, you need to be reasonably fit, at minimum. Rangers, SEALs, Recon Marines, Air Force PJs and so forth, are far above "reasonably fit." At least, the conscientious ones are. The same holds true for British Royal Marines and SAS/SBS personnel and other nations' best military units, such as Russian Spetnaz and the like.

There's a good reason for that, and it's been shown time and again that having a good level of fitness in the field during extended hostile action can be the difference between living and dying, mainly because you can keep at it for longer than the enemy, both mentally and physically. You can shoot, move and communicate at a faster rate, for example.

Being better fed and better equipped also play a part, of course.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Frustrating as hell. The difference between active Infantry and Guard/Reserve medical types is almost unfathomable. A unit I was in years ago got to 90+% passing on the Army Physical Fitness Test while deployed, but was back to under 50% 1 year after returning home.

It's a reflection of society.

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If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat

I was a Marine as a youngster and then joined the Army after college. The Marines have a culture of "fitness is important". There'd be a lot of peer pressure on fatbodies to mend their ways. Also, rarely are they hurting for recruits, so they'll happily get rid of folks that can't get with the program.

Marines have a tradition of running. Trying to win the 3mi run in an USMC PT Test was always a battle. Seemed like every time I turned around someone would show up in the unit that could get close enough to 14 flat to scare the shit out of it.

The Army, excepting the 1% of the force that is Airborne or SOF, has no culture of fitness. Also, there's very little peer pressure directed towards fatbodies, and the process for getting rid of someone is an absolute nightmare.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Every Marine Corps unit I was in, whether it as a line infantry company, a Recon/STA unit, or an I&I staff at a medical battalion, the attitude was that you had to strive to be a "20/100/18 Marine" (20 pull-ups, 100 crunches, 18:00-minute-or-lower on the 3-mile run). The former DIs from the drill field were all maniacs for PT, and it rubbed off on every Marine around them. Of course, the attitude was very strong among infantry and Recon, but it was still there even in H&S, Motor-T and other units. "Every Marine is a rifleman" (and thank you, General Al Gray ;-) were the watchwords, so you stayed in shape because it was what you did for a living.

My wife says the attitude's a bit different in her Guard unit (which is a multifunctional medical battalion) and among other local units (an MP company and so forth). The former Marines in her unit (all there because of the brutal numbers-versus-boat spaces environment in the Corps) all stay in shape, but the ones who are pure Guard (BCT/AIT OSUT, etc.) are a bit different, and that while much attention is paid to "resiliency" (whatever that is) and getting ready for transgender Soldiers (I kid you not), the APFT isn't an obsession with either the troops or the leaders, and that a lot of the Soldiers are on a physical "profile" (physical restrictions), to top things off. It is what it is, I guess.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I was thinking this, too. When 2/3 of the population is overweight or obese, that leaves for some slim pickin' (no pun intended). Although, that does get skewed by including people of all ages. I'd like to see what the numbers look like for people who are 17-25 years old (i.e., recruitable ages, under normal circumstances).

When I was in, I remember the "fatbodies" in boot camp. If I remember right, of a platoon that started out with around 75 guys, there were maybe 4-6 fatbodies to start. A couple didn't finish boot camp (although not necessarily because of physical fitness), I think one might have been held back where they got a few extra weeks of boot camp (maybe due to injury during boot camp or maybe because of weight), and a couple slimmed down pretty well and made it out as quality recruits. No idea if they rebounded shortly after or what.

I was on the other end of the spectrum - I was a "doublerat", so I got extra food. :) I think I was 6' and 135-140 pounds when I went in. I'm pretty sure we had about the same number of doublerats as we had fatbodies.

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Travis Rassat
Vector Cycle Works
Noblesville, IN
BikeFit Instructor | FMS | F.I.S.T. | IBFI
Toughman Triathlon Series Ambassador

I went to boot (USMC) in '82. I was coming off my second year of running intercollegiate, a bad year of tendonitus problems. Altho the Marines were making me a calisthenics monster, I wasn't getting in any running to speak of. Winning the run in each platoon PT test was easy enough, but I had a ways to go to max out the situps and chinups, so I worked obsessively on those.

After 14wks, the day of the final PT test came. Instead of just being our 80(?) kid platoon, there were 4 platoons doing it together. I managed to max my situps and chinups so I was quite pleased with myself. I was finally going to "win" the PT test, and not for just my platoon, but for the entire "series" of 4 platoons. Brimming with confidence, I was there to kick ass and take names.

When the run started, some tall skinny black kid headed out pretty damned fast. I didn't know him, so he was from one of the other platoons. I immediately dismissed him as a rabbit.

He wasn't a rabbit. He positively crushed me. After not getting in a "real" run all Summer, he ran the 3miles in 14:20 to my 14:50. I only had a chance to exchange a couple words with "the rabbit", and I never saw him again. The guy had a composed maturity about him that the rest of us knucklehead largely lacked. I hope things worked out well for him.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

LOL! good stuff. I was behind you 9 years ('91). Our DI's would not allow us to pass them during any PFT runs until the final PFT, then they said, "we're taking the chains off you today". It felt so good to run at open throttle, I don't remember my time but I got a '300', so I was under 18:00

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody