U.S. Troops Are Getting Overweight.

Gerry over at Disease Proof got me thinking about many aspects that may be causing our soldiers home and abroad to become overweight. I wasn’t the most fit troop and I knew it. I could pass a PT test with ease but sadly, it wasn’t until after I got out of the military that I started to be more health and fitness conscious. I wouldn’t completely blame the troops for this problem as much as I would lay blame on the military as a whole. Yes, ultimately a person physical fitness is their responsibility, but you wave a bone in front of a dogs mouth and chances are he’s going to take it. I’ll explain.

There was a report issued by the Pentagon that U.S. Troops are more overweight now than they were ten years ago. The report goes in to a lot of statistics but doesn’t get in to a whole lot of detail as to exactly why more troops are overweight. They gave some basics that, well, are even a part of our society as a whole and not so much as the military is doing something wrong. They state simple things like stress (Obviously more so in a combat zone), video games and fast food. Well, let’s look in to these things a bit more in perspective from my point of view as a veteran. We’ll also go over some other factors.

• Stress: Always a factor of weight gain. The military, no matter what branch you’re in, is a stressful environment. Send someone overseas where there life is in danger and it becomes even more stressful. For some reason it became human nature to eat as a way of comforting one’s self, add non-nutritional calories like beer and you have a recipe for fatness.
• Alcohol: This may be part of the stress factor. A lot of people get off of work and like to kick back and drink a few beers. On weekends it’s tripled and troops aren’t likely to hit the gym on the weekend after a long night of drinking. I’ve been there many times.
• (Fast) Food: This is part of the military’s fault. They try to stress nutrition and eating right but you go in to any military dining facility and you will find loads of pastries, fast food and sugar-loaded soft drinks. Essentially most of the food cooked by military cooks is nutritional if prepared properly, but when troops are given a choice between beef stew and a double cheese burger or wings, chances are they go for the “good” stuff. Why do they go for this alternatives? There are several reasons but mainly it’s because they taste good. One reason is that military cooks often are either poorly trained in cooking, they are not allowed to deviate from the recipe (make it taste better), they just don’t care because they are treated poorly by their fellow troops and looked at as an inferior occupation. They love you in the field, though. I worked food service in the military for 11 years, I’ve seen quite a bit.
• MRE’s: Let’s talk about that field chow. MRE is a Meal Ready to Eat, and sometimes referred to as Mr. E (Mystery). MRE’s have come a long way over the years. Some of them are actually semi-enjoyable now and this can be a big problem. MRE’s were built for on-the-go. A field ration meant to feed the human body with subtenant energy and they are loaded with close to 4000 calories a bag. Sometimes troops in the field will opt out of going to the dining area for food because they are tired, lazy or are on duty and can not make it. Some don’t eat everything that comes in these meals but a majority of it and that can load a person up with 3 times the recommended daily intake of calories. Unless you’re a body builder or a grunt, burning through those calories every day, they are going to get stored as fat. Nice, huh?
• Video Games: Ah, the video games! I love video games just as much as the next guy. They are a portal to a different world, sometimes to wars that we CAN win. Boredom after duty hours and overall morale are in need of something. The good old days of writing a letter home to mom are over. Mobile phones make that conversation easy and more frequent, so they pass time by playing games or watching TV. After serving long hours and not having much more to do, can you blame them for wanting to blow off some steam on the tube?
• PT or Physical Training: They say you get out of PT what you put in to it. This is very true, but here’s a little wake-up call. PT is BORING! For some it is effective and for others it’s just a waste of time, especially if they are overweight. The one hour of physical training one might get from you basic daily routine in the military is not enough. Side Straddle Hops, push-ups, sit-ups, 2 mile run…boring. The Army and I’m sure other branches have made some changes to their PT regiment but the biggest problem I had with it was that it was boring and rarely anyone ever looked forward to it. Sometimes they would try to change it up, but most of the time it was the same thing, every day.
• Frequent Schedule Changes: Sometimes just finding time to hit the gym after work is tough and it takes great discipline. When your schedule is constantly changing, it makes it even harder. Sometimes you’re on call and you can’t go to the gym or out for a run. That’s when you need to improvise, but again, it takes discipline.
• Nutrition: Honestly, you can teach nutrition to a troop until they are blue in the face, if they don’t have the desire to apply it, then what good is it?
• Barracks Rats: No, not actual rats in the barracks, but people that never leave the barracks after they get off of duty. These are just your run-of-the-mill lazy troops. They play video games, order out for pizza and such, drink when not on duty, etc. They are mainly the ones that are overweight or obese. They spend all of their waking hours and money on doing nothing productive. But wait, there are good barracks rats too. They are the ones that use the on sight physical training facilities in barracks and save money and use their room to educate themselves through books and online courses. Not all barracks rats are fat, lazy slugs.
• Troops that want out: There are a number of troops that want out of the military and one way of doing so is to fail your physical fitness test and to be overweight and unable to perform your physical duties. They put on weight in hopes to eventually be passed over for promotion, be flagged and eventually chaptered out. It happens all the time.
• Lastly, Reserve Troops: I imagine that a significant chunk of the troops that this report studied was Army National Guard and reserve troops serving overseas. A lot of these troops were not in the best of shape to begin with. I served two years in the North Carolina Army National Guard after my active duty time and I saw a lot of troops that were already overweight to begin with. They have been most of their lives and they aren’t going to drop 60+ pounds by being activated. This study looked in to the years from 1998 to 2008. if you look at the graph you will see that from 1998 to 2001 it stayed at a close average. Once 9/11 happened, Guard units started to get activated left and right and you’ll see a steady climb from 2001 to 2008. Even more Guard troops activated for Iraq so naturally the numbers are going to climb. I’m not saying that all National Guard and reserve troops are overweight because they’re not, but a fair percentage are and it’s more than the active duty personnel.

Now, let’s talk about weight standards and enforcement in the military. I’ve seen my share of overweight troops, but the fact is that the standards are a little screwed up. There is a height and weight standard that the military used. We know that muscle weight and fat weight are different and some guys and girls have more muscle mass and are shorter. Some people stop growing up and grow out in a physically fit way. Also the way that some branches test for body fat by using a measuring tape on various parts of the body to determine body fat percentage is not completely accurate either. Some people may be slightly overweight but they have no problem performing their assigned duties and passing the physical fitness tests. Sadly, some of these people are great troops and fall victim to these height and weight standards. Troops are just like regular people. You have lazy ones and you have ones that truly care. They may be held to a higher standard because they are our fighting force, but they are still human. Overweight can mean a lot of things by many different standards. The BMI (Body Mass Index) is a crock in my opinion.

Like any other system there are flaws, so let’s not start pointing fingers in any direction. If the department of defense seriously wants to fix this “Problem”, it’s going to take a lot of research and changes in order to be effective.

By the way…how many members of the military serving in the pentagon, sitting on their asses are overweight and/or obese?

Image: Me, circa 2003. I stand at 5′7″ tall and my max weight at that time was 168 pounds, which I probably weighed probably about 170 or so. I was 27 or 28 at the time. My uniform fit well and I had no trouble passing my physical fitness test. I often had to get the “Tape Test” but would always pass.

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