While members of the armed forces are traditionally associated with peak physical condition, the US Armed Forces are increasingly worried about overweight recruits: in 2003, more than 3,000 people were dismissed from all branches of the US military for being overweight.
In America, 20% of men and 40% of women are considered too overweight to be eligible for the armed services, and female recruits gain an average of 18 pounds in their first year. Army nutrition expert Colonel Gasthon Bathalon explains how weight is ‘quickly becoming a national security issue for us. The pool of recruits is becoming smaller.’ This is a drastic shift from the recruitment concerns during World War II, when Congress passed the ‘School-Lunch Program’ to build up schoolboys who were thought to be too malnourished and frail to fight. Colonel Karl Friedl looks at today’s issues as ‘the same deal in reverse … ‘we’ve got young kids who are not going to be qualified for military service. They are either unfit or overfat.’ Body Mass Index is used as a screening tool for recruits. If soldiers or recruits exceed healthy BMI figures, body-fat calculations are done using a waist-size formula. Sergeant Chad Eske of the Wisconsin Army says ‘some people have lost close to 100 pounds to join’. New measures are under way to remodel lifestyle choices in the Armed Forces, including smoking, alcohol abuse and obesity. Navy officials have launched a campaign called ‘Get Moving Navy’, intended to increase the exercise levels of military personnel and their families, and consequently reduce levels of obesity. Michael Cowan, Surgeon General of the Navy, says ‘Our goal is to create and maintain a fit and healthy force. That goal extends beyond the battlefield, to the home front.’
The problem does not end with recruits. The Veterans Affairs Health System is increasingly burdened by weight-related issues. Of US veterans, more than 70% are overweight, 33% are obese and 20% have diabetes. In the United Kingdom, when Tony Hall, a civilian consultant physician, was employed by the Ministry of Defence to investigate ‘Gulf War Syndrome’, he claimed that ‘all the eight Sandhurst Gulf War veterans that I examined were alcoholics and six were obese’.