What Body Composition Policies Show — and Hide — About Obesity in the Military
To anyone following the brouhaha surrounding fitness standards across the U.S. military, the Air Force’s six-month delay in resuming body composition measurements comes as no surprise. Three years after body mass index assessments were halted during COVID, it was announced that a new metric, waist-to-height ratio, would determine who was too overweight to serve — and, in the process, alleviate recruiting woes by giving more applicants a chance to meet standards. Delaying its induction by another six months postpones a long overdue conversation: what services will do when forced to reckon with the scale of the military obesity crisis. The The post What Body Composition Policies Show — and Hide — About Obesity in the Military appeared first on War on the Rocks.
To anyone following the brouhaha surrounding fitness standards across the U.S. military, the Air Force’s six-month delay in resuming body composition measurements comes as no surprise. Three years after body mass index assessments were halted during COVID, it was announced that a new metric, waist-to-height ratio, would determine who was too overweight to serve — and, in the process, alleviate recruiting woes by giving more applicants a chance to meet standards. Delaying its induction by another six months postpones a long overdue conversation: what services will do when forced to reckon with the scale of the military obesity crisis. The
The post What Body Composition Policies Show — and Hide — About Obesity in the Military appeared first on War on the Rocks.
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