In what I think may be the most poignant picture of the obesity epidemic, it was reported today that 3 out of 4 military-age Americans are unfit for service. The reason? They surpass the weight and/or body fat percentage limits set by the government. Since 2005, over 48,000 potential soldiers have been turned away due to weight issues – more soldiers than are currently stationed in Afghanistan.
What does it say about a country when the vast majority (75%!) of the citizens who are eligible to fight for it – and ostensibly are in the prime of their lives – are physically unable to qualify for military service on the basis of weight? And lest you think the military standards are overly rigorous, you need only to come in under 26% body fat for men and 32% for women. To see the maximum allowable weight by age, gender, height, check out the official Army site (although the requirements vary slightly by branch of service.) Catwalk models, they are not.
Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon’s accessions chief, says, “It’s clearly a problem for the United States military. We’re faced with a dwindling pool of the youth population in the 17-to-24-year-old group about which we are very concerned.”
In addition to compromising our ability to protect ourselves from outside threats, another recent study shows that our rising weights also affect our ability to provide fundamental emergency services. Researchers from Harvard and The Cambridge Health Alliance found that more than 75% of emergency responders (fire or ambulance services) are obese or overweight.
“Emergency responders (firefighters, ambulance personnel and police) are expected to be physically fit to perform strenuous duties without compromising the safety of themselves, colleagues or the community. Traditionally, these professions recruited persons of above- average fitness from a pool of healthy young adults. However, given the current obesity epidemic, the candidate pool is currently drawn from an increasingly heavy American youth.”
While I cringe at the thought of weight discrimination in the work place, there do seem to be some fields where job performance is contingent upon general health, weight playing a significant part of that. Can an overweight or obese firefighter or EMT provide the same level of emergency care that they would be able to if they were lighter? Perhaps it depends on the person. Certainly there are people out there labeled as overweight that could throw me over their shoulder and strap a kid to each appendage and then climb down 10 flights of stairs – but I’m guessing that’s more the exception than the rule.
I have to admit it makes me feel a bit frightened and vulnerable to think that such a high percentage of those people who should be able to serve and protect, if necessary, are simply physically unable to do so. All concerns about aesthetics aside, our country is only as strong as its citizenry.
Not everyone feels this way, however. Professor Samantha Kwan says the “obesity epidemic” is overblown media hype. “This epidemic has been constructed to the benefit of the medical industry that has in part medicalized the treatment of obesity over the years. While there may be a rise in ‘obesity,’ the BMI is not always accurate. Some scholars describe this epidemic more as a moral panic. While there may be some truths to rising rates, they have been overstated.”
How do you feel about it? Do these stats scare you? Or is this one more incidence of the fat hysteria sweeping the country?
I gotta say I think it’s a little bit of both. I looked at those charts and the maximum weight for me would be about 10 pounds lighter than I was at my happy weight. A weight I maintained while eating healthy, running regularly and strength training consistently. Could I have defended my country? Probably not but I could have survived boot camp, at which point I would have been able to.
I think it should be a combination of things – body fat % (not BMI), strength and fitness. I know that my brother had to lose weight when he joined the police force b/c they went on BMI to such an extreme, which I didn’t think was good.
But I do want to know that the people who are supposed to protect me and help me are healthy enough to do it. I do think that this is one industry where weight is an issue and should be taken into account in the hiring process.
I looked at my own height and weight on that chart and I am right on the edge of being too high. But am I physically fit enough to fight in combat overseas? I highly doubt it. Going through boot camp may or may not effect my weight significantly, but it wouldn’t need to in order to make the cut. I think that point is that there are a lot of people way over that limit; people who couldn’t complete training or would end up in the hospital trying. That’s not good. There are some jobs where people are required to be healthy and fit to perform them. That’s not prejudice, it’s just reality.
Add me to the folks who think it’s both. I checked just now: a 6-foot tall man barely makes the cutoff for “normal” weight at 183. If we’re talking firefighters (for instance), those guys tend to have more muscle, so they’re FAR more likely to fall into the “overweight” category. I think Gemfit has a good idea with the body fat %.
Also bear in mind that in 1998, the BMI cutoff for “normal” was lowered pretty dramatically: the “overweight” category now starts at 25, whereas until 1998 it started at 27. That doesn’t sound like much, but it means that that same 6’0″ foot firefighter would have been “normal” at 198 before, whereas now his “normal” weight is 15 pounds less.
And here I was going to write that that doesn’t mean that maybe there aren’t people out there who are too fat to do their jobs – but then I realized: if they’re doing their jobs, they passed the tests, right? Bottom line is, I don’t care what the firefighter weighs if he can get me out of the building, or what the EMT weighs, as long as he can give me CPR. And you can’t guage someone’s strength by looking at them (or just at their BMI).
I think the military article is presented (by the writer, not you, Charlotte) as misleading, too: those who can’t meet the standards get turned away. Leaving one to deduce that those who are getting accepted ARE meeting the standards. Even the firefighter/EMT article talks about NEW “recruits” – not people who have passed the tests and gone on to become firefighters/EMTs, etc.
AND (sorry, now I’m on a roll), I’d be interested to know how many of the military folks can meet the physical fitness tests and ONLY fail the BMI test. Maybe not that many, but if they can pass the fitness tests, should their weight really be an issue (even if we use body fat % as a measurement)? And shouldn’t the focus for people who can’t pass be on getting them to a point where they COULD pass, as opposed to losing weight? Because those two things might not always line up the way we think they should.
Perhaps the real answer is to fatten up all the world’s military forces. Then the only competitive battles could be on the new TV show, “The World’s Biggest Loser.”
My BFF is full-time National Guard and is having a very hard time with the “tape” rule. She makes sure to get soldiers the correct paperwork they need daily. She has been over seas for 18 months while her 6 month old baby was at home. She constantly struggles with the Army’s BMI guidelines. I feel they need to loosen up.
Hmmm… it sounds like from some of the comments that sometimes the arbitrary weight cut-offs might exclude some physically fit folks.
However, it really does concern me that the rising obesity rates and lack of physical fitness of so many folks is getting to be such a problem that it’s hard to find police, firefighters or soldiers!
(Not that I’m exactly volunteering either.)
I heard about this- that’s really terrible. Those kinds of people HAVE to be in good physical condition, and there’s no excuse for them not to be.
The body fat percentage allowed seems pretty high considering the amount of muscle those people should have… but I don’t think that weight is a good indication. Just physical exertion tests and all should be enough; weight shouldn’t be an issue. I’m way under the max. weight allowed but my gym buddy, a girl who used to be sponsored because she was so awesome at sports, is technically “obese” on the BMI- and that’s all due to muscle; she has very little fat on her. So every body is different.
I also think that the BMI scale is highly flawed. And many people I know who are considered overweight are FAR more physically fit than the skinnier folks. I think we need to let go of the mindset that heavier automatically equals less fit. I strongly believe that, instead of charts, we need to judge folks based on performance. How do they do at bootcamp? At training exercises? Are they able to meet the physical, mental and emotional requirements of the job?
On a more personal level, I do think that our focus on the obesity “epidemic” has given many people free reign to practice prejudice under the guise of concern.
I remember my dad going on crazy crash diets trying to “make weight” in the army.
What I don’t get is… well, one of the many things in life I don’t get… if you join the military you get sent to boot camp, right? And people who go through boot camp and come out the other side still standing are usually thinner, fitter, more able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, right?
So why don’t they take these candidates who don’t qualify as is for the military and open up an obesity boot camp for them?
I see fit people going to local gyms that offer a ‘boot camp’ exercise program. Perhaps the military could start proactively opening some of these gyms and subsidize candidates?
It bothers me to see police officers — those on patrol — who are morbidly obese. That’s not only dangerous for them, it’s dangerous for those they are sworn to protect.
It says that 75% were turned away, but statistics can be skewed. In fact, most are skewed. Could it perhaps be that the sociological demographic most likely to apply for military service are also those in lower income families that historically have relied on carb reach, nutritionally deficit food to make ends meet? Its true that the best way to stretch a dollar is with pasta and the like rather than fresh fruit and seafood… Just my two cents…
I would make it – I am more than 20 pounds under the max for my height and age. Whew! But to think that so many don’t fit the requirements – sad and scary.
I was thinking about this when I was walking across the college campus at which I teach this morning.
When I was in high school, I was THE fat kid (this sucked, but that’s beside the point). There were maybe two other girls in the whole high school who were noticeably chubby.
I look at my classes today… kids a year or two out of high school… and I’d say that maybe 25% or more of the kids could clearly stand to lose some weight (and I am not what you’d call a harsh judge of these things). If you’re starting there at 19 or 20, the long-term trend is not going to be good. And it’s a really significant increase relative to when I was in college, some 20+ years ago.
Something to be hysterical about… no. Worrisome trend? Yes.
I think as long as they passed their tests and can do their jobs, then I’m okay with it. But…my husband is in the military and didn’t have to retake his fitness exam until he tried to re-enlist, 6 years after he first signed on! Needless to say, we had a bit of work to do to get him up to par…so eh, I guess it is a little bit of both. Some people can be heavier but still very fit and capable.
LOL, is the guy on the picture actually from the Russian army? The sign behind him is written in Russian.
Bit of both. I am actually considered too heavy to be considered for duty, but I can run a 10k and am probably stronger than most of the recruits. I think it should be about passing physical fitness tests, and not the weight. I’d rather have an overweight person who could do what they need to do than someone within the weight range and weak. Just my 2 cents…
Interesting Post! I think it would be a good idea to judge on physical tests. I have been an athlete my whole life (played college lacrosse) and am just 1 lb. under the max for my height. At 5’5″ and a size 6 I would hardly call myself overweight. I know I can easily pass the test (PRT) as my husband and brother were both officers in the service. I think these charts have trouble accounting for muscle mass and therefore should be traded for some real testing! I agree that our country is getting rather unhealthy though 🙁
Interesting Post! I think it would be a good idea to judge on physical tests. I have been an athlete my whole life (played college lacrosse) and am just 1 lb. under the max for my height. At 5’5″ and a size 6 I would hardly call myself overweight. I know I can easily pass the test (PRT) as my husband and brother were both officers in the service. I think these charts have trouble accounting for muscle mass and therefore should toss out the “chart” and do some real testing! I agree that our country is getting rather unhealthy though 🙁
My husband is currently serving in Afghanistan and every day his life depends on the physical ability of those around him to do their job. If the military were to loosen their standards, that would put his life at greater risk. I know weight isn’t the most telling way of demonstrating physical fitness, but the military already wastes a great deal of funding on determining who really is fit enough for the job. A scale is just about as cheap as you can get, and is still a fairly good indicator of health for the price you’re going to pay.
I don’t think the overweight issue is hyped up at all. Our nation’s health is dissipating at epidemic rates and our enemies continue to improve their strategies.
I am just grateful for all the good men and women who are willing to be their best to serve our country to the best of their abilities.
My hubby is in the Navy and I have to agree that the BMI is not the best measurement (and often not done correctly by those measuring). It really handicaps those guys that weight train and so have larger muscle mass. We’ve known a couple who were in amazing shape but didn’t fall into the right range because they were gym rats. They had no trouble doing the PRT though…
So no they shouldn’t lower the standards… but they should definitely use a standard that is more accurate.
Christ. I miss my mark by 20 pounds. And I play college rugby and can still run a 6 minute mile, I'm just thick and muscular. By BMI, I'm obese, by body fat percentage, I'm not. I think a simply height/weight formula is not the way to go. I mean, they'd have to turn down people like Brock Lesnar, and two thirds of the NFL.
I think that part of the problem as to why our military is shrinking is simply because of the BMI restrictions that are imposed. Most Americans are considered obese based only on BMI. I know that for myself I am considered overweight standing at 5'6" and weighing 174lbs. I've been trying to enlist in the Air Force for several months now, but since my BMI is unacceptable to their standards they won't let me. Little do they know that I can run a mile and a half at about a 9:30 time, do at least 57 push ups in a minute, and 66 sit-ups in a minute…all well above the minimum PT scores. I work out 6 days a week and I am an all around athlete. I've already dropped about 12lbs to get down to 174lbs. and I'm significantly weaker overall from it. Ditch the BMI restrictions and let the true athletes step up and bolster our military forces. Whether obesity is a problem or not, the military is screwing itself out of plenty of good candidates with its own restrictions. Had to vent a little :).
These numbers are just appalling, It shows American's lack of self discipline and respect. Being an active duty Marine, I am biased towards saying this should be frowned upon. It is to a point where obesity has become the norm and is not really seen as anything but a side effect of the lifestyle that most Americans choose to live. I don't see it to be the military's responsibility to cater to those who want to serve but choose not to put forth the effort to meet the already generous standards. Enlisting into the military at this point is completely voluntary and those who want in are made aware of what is required of them. Boot camp is not meant to bring recruits into weight standards it is there to develop the basic skills and discipline for service members. If anyone is to blame for this situation it is the individual American who chooses not to live a healthy life.