Fat floats
The Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, is thankfully leaving that post, but as he leaves, he’s going to leave his footprint on the Navy. His latest decision is to relax body fat standards in the Navy, according to ABC News;
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the service is not lowering standards but rather adjusting to reality: People today, in general, are bigger but not necessarily fat. The Navy is also considering larger uniforms sizes for the first time in two decades.
“It’s far more realistic,” Mabus said of the new body fat standard. “We were kicking more people out of the Navy for failing that, than for drugs.”
The number of sailors booted from the Navy annually because they did not meet physical standards has more than doubled from 694 in 2011 to 1,536 in 2014.
The changes come amid debate over whether the physical requirements demanded of service members across the board are still relevant or should be adjusted according to the job so the armed forces can maintain the pool of talent it needs for today’s high-tech warfare.
There’s been talk in the Army of easing up on strict body fat requirements for its cyber-warriors, for example.
Yeah, there’s a way to measure body fat – it’s called the hydrostatic body fat test – based on the simple fact that fat floats and muscle doesn’t. So the more water that gets displaced when a person is immersed in a tank, the less fat they have under their skin because they sink further into the tank. But I guess that’s too much science for the Navy Secretary – it’s just easier to relax the standards. And make larger uniforms. Of course, maybe he’s thinking ahead. With maintenance dollars becoming more scarce, ships will fail to float, so sailors will be able to float when their boat sinks. You know what else floats?
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Politics
Lax standards for cyber warriors? Is that them saying “we are looking for basement dwellers”?
“Mom! Hurry up with my hot pockets, I’m being an internet ninja Navy SEAL! I need food!”
A duck floats, so if he weighs the same as a duck…. hes a witch!
Its not lowering standards, its adjusting them to benefit the gravitationally challenged. What a load of shit
Won’t this let more chix into the Navy?
[ducks..runs for cover]
“The Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, is thankfully leaving that post…”
Hell Yeah.
My best friend is a Marine and is hoping for the Corps to relax the height/weight standards. Currently, she is 12 pounds over the maximum weight for her height. The problem is that she isn’t fat; she tapes at 17% BFI. The problem is that she can deadlift twice her body weight and is putting in for actual competition within the Corps.
She’s on a reduced calorie “weight reduction diet” because she’s over her maximum weight, even though she got a higher PT score than the majority of her unit and has a lower BFI than some of the males in her unit.
That kind of problem needs to be fixed, not lowering the standards to let fat-bodies stay in.
You didn’t mention her weight class but generally speaking, a 2XBW DL is not impressive or really competitive even for females. Especially if they aren’t overweight. It actually falls into the intermediate lifter category for females.
Higher PT score then the majority of the unit? Unless its a 285+ on the Male standard, no one cares what your PFT score is. CFTs should be easy 300s for everyone.
As long as she tapes out and maintains he PFT/CFT then there is nothing to worry about.
This is BS. I SPENT 24 in the Navy Retired in 2013. I had to work my ass off to stay in standards and in front of my troops all the time. We would test our unit every month if they got close to the 22 they would be placed on FEP Fitness enhancement program. until they passed under 20% also if they failed out of PT formation runs same thing until you could do the runs with the company. We have been doing this type of shit in our community for over 20 years. The rest of the Navy started cracking down about 10 years ago now this jack ass has tossed all that shit out the door. I believe it is to relax things for women but also helps the fat ass male troop do the minimum. WTF!!!!!
Word.
Fat floats. And so does Maybus’ bullshit.
He’s just trying to help out his shipmates in case the ship sinks!
Bottom line it is recruiting. I had guys coming to the unit from Boot camp and A-School already at 22 % without tacking the first unit PT test. That is the problem you let them in the Navy already at the limit what do think will happen when they get older? This SECMAV sucks and I saw it going down hill before I left. POS
Sorry SECNAV
Preach brother!! I wish the standards were more strict and should include pull-ups. #ThanksObama
BTW: happy belated birthday (March 5th)
Jonn, when I was in the Navy, many of us advanced that idea, the hydrostatic body fat test, as far back as the 1990s.
The Navy would not be willing to embrace that based on what I observed when we were all being weighed and taped. The people doing the taping were not always consistent, and were willing to deviate from the rules to save certain people from being recorded as failing the tape. For example, I saw one guy measure another one at the waist when the measurement should’ve been at the abdomen. This was after the same guy measured me around my abdomen and everybody else around theirs. When it came to their favored sailors, who were obviously fat bodies, they changed their methods.
Consequently, this fat body had the “same” body fat percentage that I had, when he was shorter and obviously was fat.
I’m not surprised that the Navy is adjusting to the new generation instead of requiring the new generation to adjust to the Navy. Unfortunately, today’s Army is starting to follow the same trend.
The Navy has an equivalent to an ALARACT that allows sailors to walk from organized PT with their PT shirts untucked. One of your earlier articles had a private that took a selfie while hiding from rendering honors to the colors. I saw a situation recently, on a Navy base, where sailors were sitting in their cars, emergency blinkers on, instead of standing outside and rendering honors to colors.
We saw this decay and discipline and standards coming from a mile ahead, and tried to fight it two decades ago, but were demonized and vilified. I could not envision myself serving in the Navy today.
I live near Fort Detrick in Maryland. A few years back I was on the base when colors was played. I was the ONLY person who stopped and render respect to the colors. Everything on the base continued as “normal.”
Disgusting.
Hopefully the next SECNAV will unfuck this clown’s stupidity.
Mabus is the true definition of weak sauce.
Later Mabus and don’t let the door hit you in the ass. I hope they “escort” him out of the Pentagon.
Even the National Institutes of Health is wary of the usefulness of body mass indices as a measure of actual obesity. Sorry guys but I have to side with that POS Mabus on this one. And that makes me want to throw up, but:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2877506/
Back in the day before BMI was ever heard of, I knew lots of hefty NCO’s in the 101st and 82d that you would never, ever want to take on. I had a roommate at Campbell who had a belly that would get him in big trouble today, yet that guy, like, Ali, could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, a true badass.
I never saw any of those NCO’s where they were unable to lead their troops on the ground because of excess weight. I have maintained for years that a lot more research is needed on the topic of BMI before it continues to ruin careers of those whose bodies are genetically disposed to store more fat.
And no, I was not a fattie:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Russ+vaughn+image&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE7qWJ2KzLAhVruoMKHfGHDk8Q_AUIBygB&biw=1120&bih=534#imgrc=xoHqCT6Eo62woM%3A
Hey, PT. Now if they change a coupla more standards I might try to re-enlist.
Age should NOT be a detriment. I’m gonna get the AARP involved. AGISM!!!
70 YEAR OLDS UNITE!!!
The Army is lazy and just using the American Medical Association’s standards for bodyfat. AMA’s chart is to determine what the “average” person’s weight should be for their height and age.
No Soldier is the “average” person.
The AMA also considers professional bodybuilders “Morbidly Obese” because they have more total weight on their frame than they should have. If you don’t have enough bodyfat, you might be considered “malnourished” by them. But again, this is all for “average” people.
I’m a big guy myself and have to deal with getting taped, I always come in around 20%, which is far lower than my minimum. I don’t have a belly (like so many Senior Officers and CSMs do these days), but I have to get taped so I’m the dirtbag. Yep, good deal.
As one of his last official acts, Mabus named his daughter, Elizabeth, as sponsor of a ship. I never heard of a ship’s sponsor so I checked it out. You water people are familiar with it. Anyway, my point is that being a ship’s sponsor is open only to women. And here I thought Mabus was all about overlooking gender when it comes to military matters.
All animals are equal, but….
Yep, Mabus is one of the pigs. (no pun intended on this story)
Is his daughter hot?
One of the findings of the recent studies on women in combat roles was that we are looking at body fat the wrong way. There is such a thing as being too fat, to be sure, but the amount of lean muscle mass is the real key. This is especially true for women.
In other words, we would rather have the extra fat as long as it comes with extra muscle mass.
The Marines realized this a few years ago and changed their standards. However, they also added a combat fitness test that added elements of strength and power to their fitness testing.
Less then a year to go and this nightmare ends
HOOOOAH ! ! ! !
We hope…and pray…fingers crossed…and toes.
There’s something annoying about the last graf in the quoted block, because it plays into a stereotype. The Infoworld writer Robert X. Cringely noted as far back as the early ’90s that the urban legend of the best hackers being bearded fat guys with poor hygiene was a myth promoted mostly by bearded fat guys with poor hygiene. It wasn’t actually true then, and it’s doubtful if it’s true now.
The DoD evidently didn’t get the memo.
Its not just the military that is obsessed with body fat. Medicare and Medicaid include weight and height in their MU and PQRS bonus program (don’t ask). When I was in the Air Force in the 70’s one of the SSGT’s got booted for being a fat-body, among other things. This is not a new problem just one the elite monkeys in charge have chosen not to fix with a hydrostatic weight program.
What happens when a submarine crew gets so fat while under way they cant get out of the boat in port? Can we just starve them out?
I’m not a Submariner, but flooding the tubes and shooting a slug comes to mind.
WTF did those poor water slugs ever do to you? Sure, they’re ugly as hell, but….
I used to weep when they recovered the chairs in Maneuvering with that blue naugahyde. Poor little naugas. Used to roam the open prairies in huge herds, and now they’re almost extinct.
Well I’m a muscle head myself, but just being able to life a heavy weight doesn’t translate into a better warrior. It just translates into a higher one rep max in lifting weights.
I’ve seen some seriously fit and muscular guys over the years, but I never saw one with lifts heavy enough to be competitive that at that level didn’t sacrifice velocity and endurance to a significant point.
We test our guys where I work on Bragg…it’s always easy to see who is going to be bringing up the rear.
And if bigger uniforms also means a bigger waist it’s not because you’re a superhero.
addendum: The difference in what I see running around Bragg now compared to when I went through SFMS is ridiculous. Our students are still studs, but the number of sideshow freaks you see running around the 82nd Airborne areas is just incredible to see.
It’s not just their appearance either, it is the conspicuous lack of physical ability that really makes you shake your head.
Remember too that now FORSCOM and USARC are there on Bragg. That’s a whole lot more POGery than was there before 2010ish.
TL;DR = “I pick things up and put them down.”
…runs for cover…
Since you mentioned that . . . . (smile)
Do what you want powers that be, the Infantry will remain the Infantry and you can do nothing to stop it.
If some joes were a Turd it was often easier to get rid of them through the fat body program…. just sayin.
The whole thing is pure, unadulterated bull snort.
I never could run worth a flip, but I could tread water for hours. No one really measure endurance, which is based on how long you can do something before your muscles are literally burnt and you can’t even lift your arms to put your hands on the dinner table.
Women need more body fat than men to stay healthy.
But now that MaybethisMaybethat is sailing off into the sunset, Maybesomeone else will have a better idea how sailors should look. Maybe we’ll see someone of those old-style bosun’s with guts that would frighten bull shark.
Is retention going down?
Used to be when a round a personnel cuts was due the PRT standards were the first thing to tighten up. In the first paragraph of the message it usually contained the phrase “this is not being done as a force shaping tool” Made we wonder why they had to even mention it.
I don’t’ want to get into a big thing but yes. The Navy was cracking down around 2007 to get ready for budget cuts so the PT test as for the failures was adjusted. You can only fail 3 in a 4 year period but you have a test every 6 months. So you do the math people would be dropping left and right and that is what happen. The problem came in around 2010 when big Navy took the choice for the commanding officer to do a operational waiver for some one who came in at 1 or 3 % over on tape not to exceed the DOD limit of 26%. The other thing is how they looked in uniform if the CO was good with it they would get a pass if they passed the actual PRT TEST with A high or better (4 CATS with high being the second highest)in all categories including the run. The CO would waive depending on all the listed standards. The member would then be placed on FEP program for next 6 months until the next test he had to pass at most commands but you know some was abused. Anyway this leads to 2011-2015 when Navy took that away from the CO’s so from that point it was you pass tape you can take PT test you fail tape that counts as over all failure and the clock starts ticking to the 3 in 4 years. Bye the way the Chiefs are the ones that wanted to do away with the waivers and go to a pass of fail period so we did it to are self’s. Now we have this BS because the numbers of failures and people being shown the door is higher then the bean counters could count for.
The current Army APFT and body fat standards simply do not reflect operational requirements- what it takes to do Soldier tasks while wearing 80+ pounds of body armor/helmet/weapons/ammo BEFORE you add a ruck.
Commanders who work towards functional fitness in their PT program find that their unit APFT average drops because of run times, while units that work towards higher APFT scores find that their Soldiers can’t ruck, assault, or last very long in the field.
Until the Army recognizes that strength, power, and endurance are more important than an arbitrary 2 mile run time and sit up score, we will have this problem. The Marines took huge strides by adding their Combat Fitness Test, let’s see if the Army does something smart as well.
I don’t see all the hand wringing over retention or recruiting when the military is being cut anyway due to budget.
I’ll be SOOOOO damned glad when the Reign of O’Bozo is over.
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Several years ago I knew that the BMI was bullish*t when we had a tall skinny college kid have to send in pictures of himself to prove that he was not as fat as the BMI said he was.
He was about 6’3″ and 180 pounds of NCAA cross county runner who could so sub 40 minute 10 K’s without trying.
He did not have a large neck and that measurement was the one that put him in the “fat boy” program.