The US military is fighting a fitness crisis brought by a growing number of obese troops and ‘skinny fat’ recruits who can’t pass fitness tests.
Obesity rates among service members surged during COVID and recruiters are also confronted by a growing number of would-be soldiers who are simply too large, too weak or both.
Top brass are now redefining fitness tests – including the military’s notorious ‘tape test’ – and introducing state-of-the-art scanner machines that calculate body fat. Troops who fail are placed on special programs to bring them into shape.
The military’s fitness crisis, which generals have terms a threat to national security, is compounded by the growing obesity rates among all Americans. A recent report by the Center for Diseases Control titled ‘Unfit to Serve’ found a staggering one third of young adults are ‘too heavy’ to serve in the military.
Around 23 percent of Army soldiers were obese in 2021, according to a recent study of data from the Military Health System Data Repository. That’s compared to 18 percent before the pandemic, which meant physical work and training was scaled back due to lockdowns.
The US military is fighting a fitness crisis brought by a growing number of obese troops and ‘skinny fat’ recruits who can’t pass fitness tests. PIctured: U.S. Army trainees participating in the Army’s new Future Soldier Prep Course at Fort Jackson, SC, on September 28, 2022
Military leaders warn a decline in the fitness of US military personnel poses a threat to national security (file photo)
Study author Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, said: ‘The Army and the other services need to focus on how to bring the forces back to fitness.’
Marine Corps Brigadier General Stephen Cheney went further and said the military’s fitness crisis is a ‘dramatic national security problem’ which is getting ‘worse and worse and worse’.
Similar declines in fitness have also been observed in the Navy and the Marines.
The emerging ‘skinny fat’ phenomenon has been highlighted by Dr Karl E. Friedl, a physician and former Army officer who led research into fitness within the military.
‘It’s guys who look good in skinny jeans, but they have high fat because there’s no muscle,’ he told the Wall Street Journal.
Sources say recruits at some military bases are now also even calcium supplements after a rise in broken bones.
The military uses a series of standardized fitness tests and procedures to calculate fitness and body fat and decide a person’s eligibility to serve. Applicants who don’t meet the criteria can be screened out, while current service members who fail the tests are placed on special fitness programs to get them in shape.
One procedure to calculate body fat levels is the notorious ‘tape test’, which until recently involved using a tape to measure a soldier’s height, and neck and weight circumference, then putting the answers through a formula which also accounts for age to calculate their body fat.
That was revamped in June 2023 to the ‘one-site tape test’ that involves simply measuring the ‘abdominal circumference’ and throwing that into a formula.
Sounds simple enough – but for years the tape test has been the cause of much consternation, not least because of disputes inside the Pentagon about exactly where a person’s waist should be measured. Army guidance states it is the belly button, while the Navy cites the iliac crest (around the pelvis).
The Air Force opts for the spot between the lowest rip and the tip of the hip bone, per the WSJ’s review of the tape test’s many discrepancies.
Friedl recalled a ‘whole meeting’ in 1989 about where the waist should be measured.
The Pentagon has invested in high-tech machines including the ‘Bod Pod’ to calculate body fat
Before the pandemic, about 18 percent of the soldiers were obese; by 2021, it grew to 23 percent, the study found
Under the new, somewhat simplified ‘one-site’ test, male soldiers must not exceed a body fat of 24 to 30 percent, depending on their age, while for females it is 30 to 36 percent.
Troops who narrowly fail the test can opt for a full body scan in a futuristic machine called the ‘Bod Pod’ which calculates fat levels. Other machines are also available which perform ‘bioelectrical impedance analysis’ or ‘dual energy X-ray absorptiometry’, each with the same purpose of giving a more accurate measure of fat than measuring with tape.
Fitness is also, obviously, decided by a series of physical tests – and candidates who excel in these can be exempt from the body fat test.
Each branch of the military uses a slightly different test. The Army’s involves timed push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, running, hiking and swimming.
Doctors have previously told DailyMail.com that anti-obesity drugs like Wegovy could be used to help soldiers shed weight.
In fiscal year 2022, the Army failed to make its recruiting goal for the first time, falling short by 15,000 recruits, or a quarter of the requirement.
That is largely because three-quarters of Americans aged 17 to 24 are not eligible for military service for several reasons, including extra weight.
Being overweight is the biggest individual disqualifier, affecting more than one in 10 potential recruits, according to the report.
