Obesity Epidemic Comes to an Army Near You When even the military cannot be characterized as Spartan, what is there to say of broader society?
US soldiers are going to extremes -- taking diet pills and laxatives, even starving themselves and getting liposuction -- in order to meet the military’s weight standards, the Army Times reported Monday.
More than a third of uniformed men and women do not meet the Army’s weight standards, according to a 2009 military fitness report, and those officers are subjected to dreaded tape measurements to determine body fat percentage.
A recent report explained that 25% are not even eligible to serve enlist to being out-of-shape and obese.
The article, as is typical of modern America, makes the standards seem bad. If people are fat, it's only because the Army has the wrong definition. Anyone who has served with people who are "Army fat," however, know damned well that standards matter.
Thirty pounds of fat doesn't seem like much to civilians. Yet 30 pounds of fat you're carrying could have gone into your ruck sack. Would you rather have a fellow soldier carrying 30 pounds of fat, or 30 pounds of ammo?
Who will stick-and-move quicker - the fat guy, or the lean guy? Watch some college wrestling. You see little body fat, because body fat (other than the small amount around your organs) is non-functional. It slows you down. A 180 pound ripped wrestler is always going to beat the 180 pound fat wrestler. Boxers, likewise, aren't lean to look sexy: They're lean because fat slows you down.
It used to be that strength was celebrated in one's youth. Being fat is OK - if you're an old man. As a young man, you did your part by remaining fit - and thus willing to serve as an soldier in the Army, or a soldier in the unorganized militia. If shit went down or an army invaded, you were willing to serve. If you saw a kid being taken advantage of down the street, well, you handled it. Because you could.
Eventually every man gets old and becomes physically useless. Traditionally this was no big deal. After all, you had a bunch of young bucks behind you, willing to carry on the tradition.
Where have all the young men gone? What will happen to your neighborhoods and your nation when there are none left?
And while some might see this a crisis of youth, it's also a crisis of age. "The beauty of young men is their strength, And the honour of old men is grey hairs."
How did you old men lack the wisdom to see the decline of Western civilization? How could you have failed to see the feminization of your boys? What does the sorry state of youth say about you?
