Army the least fit service
Poetrooper sends us a link from the New York Post which proclaims that the Army is the fattest service while the Marine Corps is the fittest service;
A hefty 10.5 percent of all members of the Army are overweight, up four percentage points from five years ago, Defense Department data obtained by Military Times show.
The Air Force is the second-heaviest branch with 9 percent of its members overweight, more than double the figure from five years ago. The Navy weighed in with 5.9 percent of its members needing to toss a few pounds overboard, up from 3.3 percent in 2011.
The Marines, meanwhile, are the fittest branch, with 2.3 percent of its members deemed overweight. That’s still up from 1.7 percent in 2011, the data show.
It’s not that surprising, actually, when you consider that the Army has more soldiers in support roles than the Marines as a percentage of their members compared to the number of trigger pullers. Given the general physical shape of the civilian world, though, the services probably need to focus more on fitness these days than a lot of the things they do, especially since there are fewer deployments compared to ten years ago.
The Army should bring back their Master Fitness Course – it changed my life.
Category: Air Force, Army News, Marine Corps, Military issues
A failure to enforce standard’s and a change in the cultural mentality.
“Im fat…but its not my fault”
If you look at the Army Times article that has all the stats.
The most unfit are:
Army
Non combat
Female
Black
That is a POG bulling, racist, sexist, and completely offensive remark.
(I like the way you think)
2banana,didn’t you get the memo? If you are Black and female, in that order, the rules do not apply to you. Fortunately, there are many Black and female troops who don’t subscribe to that PC bullshit. I salute them.
Sounds like E-9 Carrot Top.
Hell, that wet mop bun on the back of her head alone weighs 50 pounds.
Amen, Claw, Amen! Don’t forget her fingernails and shoes…?
Get that fat bootie, use all the 36% body fat you’re entitled to or it’s “racist”…
BMI is something I can’t quite grasp as a measure of obesity. As I understand it, a heavily muscled individual with little body fat will, if his height and weight get plugged into the calculator, come out as fat. How does the military acct for these people?
With tape tests. Which I’m not sure are any more scientifically valid than BMI, but whatever.
The military is an entity that looks at something someone wrote to get grant money. It’s all BS.
A lean, cut bodybuilder would be fat to them, because of his/her muscle mass, as would a power lifter who doesn’t have to be quite so lean but does need more than average muscle mass.
The ‘military’ does’t have a clue and never will, but as long as some desk jockey in the bowels of the DoD says ‘this is how it’s gonna be’, then the results will be completely wacko.
One of my Dril Seargents was Samoan. He told me, post graduation, that although maxing the APFT each time, he had to be taped, and sometimes waivered.
The guy could probably bench press a Jeep. He is one of the strongest people I have ever met, and could run all of us into the dirt.
But he was “obese”.
Because the chart was made in the 50s for the average white male who, back then, was 2 inches shorter and skinny as fuck because there weren’t as many processed foods. Not to mention, we still made shit and that took muscle and energy.
Even at 6’3″ I am only supposed to be 217. Yeah, right. I am built like a linebacker and can’t help it. Even my doctors don’t bug me about it because I’m not “fat” its just I’m a big guy. I always passed tape easily too because I don’t have a big E-9/O-7 belly.
The BMI chart itself is bogus and a scam. Plain and simple. I am taller and bigger than my dad, who was taller and bigger than his dad. This chart hasn’t been updated since it came out when my dad was in grade school.
Professional Body Builders are even considered “morbidly obese” because their ht/wt ratio is off due to all the muscle.
We had a Soldier get told by a doctor during his mobilization physical that he was “morbidly obese”…little did that doctor know that this kid was a body builder AND an MMA fighter (with a bad temper, I might add). That doctor almost ended up with an asswhoopin what Pine-Sol wouldn’t take off!
I never made weight from the day I joined. The lowest I got was 225 at 6’3″. However, I never taped higher than 18%, and that last was just before I got out because I couldn’t do PT very well thanks to medical problems.
I was MFT-qualified in my unit and did an hour of resistance machines every morning and an hour of cardio every evening.
God, I need to get back into that…
Retired in 2012, but at the time the air force had no accounting for it and lost strong members due to the BMI and waste measuremen (which didn’t take height into account in any fashion.)
The Air Force, atleast, went from wanting people to fight a war to wanting to prevent heart disease in 40 years. Stupid from any angle.
I always favored the Dickeedo Test.
Jonn sure gets a lot of mileage out of that picture!
?
It has been around for years. Poor bastard is famous for all the wrong reasons.
Oh, I know…and it’s still funny and sad all at the same time!
??
THAT GUY looks like he NEVER met a pizza or jelly doughnut he didn’t like.
I love the guy holding down the tongue of a 2 ton trailer with one arm while waiting for the deuce and a half to hitch it up. Remember, the Army needs chock blocks too.
Chock Block:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=66229
26Limabeans…LMAO!!!!! Forgot that little cutie!
That made me Raff out Roud.
Nah, that’s appropriately enough a Rhino. Fitting, a rhino leaning on a Rhino 🙂 .
I will say that I’ve seen the Marines let go some fairly fit but giant dudes that I suspect maybe they should have kept. When you actually need a guy built like that, somehow two regular guys just don’t work as well.
Like Swede.
I’m what some would refer to as a well-muscled individual, I rarely made weight but always passed the tape test with flying colors. I also saw a few who were listed as “Fat Boys” that could outwork, outrun and out-hump many a slender individual on a road march. Hell, in my early forties I still outran and out-humped many a twenty-something, on one road march we had an E5 who was a super-jock that did all kinds of competitions that barely finished a twelve-miler that I made with flying colors and at that time I was old enough to be his dad.
I got “the patch” every year I was in, except for two (the year I was injured and the PT test just before I ETSed). Hell, my Drill made me sew the patch onto my PTs before I went to AIT just so the Drills there could screw with me.
I’m 100% in favor of all body measurement regs being shorn, violently, from the rules book and make it all performance based.
BUT! I am also 100% in favor of making that performance metric adhere to necessities of infantrying. A soldier is a soldier and should, as in fucking must, be able to step up and fill any needful slot regardless of current MOS.
Any slack ass piece of shit that can’t pull the min necessary to qual for grunt should be thrown, bodily, out of the service.
Fuck it if he don’t look purty in uniform. That shit’s for faggots. The only thing that should be allowed to matter is, can he perform up to standard?
The Bodyfat Program used to be for those “determined to be overweight by the commander”.
Problem was, the good ol’ boy system was putting SOME on the weight control program, flagging them, etc. Others who were tight with the good ol’ boys were getting a pass. Especially in the Reserve component.
Hence, to make it more equitable, they made it mandatory. Not that it stops good ol’ boy stuff from happening, but it did decrease the issue.
A few years back they were supposed to be implementing a “if you can pass the APFT at 240 or better, you don’t get taped” option, but that seems never came to fruition.
Imo, the whole BodyFat Program is about appearance over performance.
Some folk just gotta demand they be surrounded only by pretty people and template comformists.
The same kind of mindset that’s liable to decide that a military outfit needs a new kind of hat issued to make its personnel feel special.
“I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General’s bowel movements or their Colonel’s piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.”
Truer words were never spoken! Now, where is THAT Army so I can sign up?
And the irony is that quote was penned by a French Commando.
After seeing the French Army “in action” during my assignments to Europe in the 70’s and 80’s, France always had more of the former Army mentioned than the latter.
Well, it’s pretty much a given that the best French troops aren’t even French (the Foreign Legion).
Hey, go easy on the French. Its not too many countries that can’t even win a war against themselves…
The Army also has a much larger percentage of Reserve and Guard than the other branches.
Reserves have s higher rate of people on the ABCP (Army Bodyfat Composition Program) than Active Duty.
We did a PT Test Saturday and very few were above 250, most in the 181 to 225 range, but only 2 failures. About 60% of the unit got taped, and about 13% are on the “fat boy” program
6, 7, 8 years ago we were sending troops to MOS schools in the Reserves even if they failed APFT or HT/WT because we needed them to deploy. They’d get a marginal 1059 if they didn’t pass tape at the school, but they graduated and deployed.
Now, we’re in the window of “oh, these guys are fat? Hmmm. What do we do?”
For the first five years of my career, I was in an Infantry Guard unit and there were no soldiers that failed themselves out of the Army. Even if they failed the APFT, they never failed the re-test (especially not after this POG Supply Puppy worked with them).
The last four years, I was in the HHC of a BSB. It took me a year of working with the company to get them 100% PT pass (I came in as a MFT and was the only one in the Battalion). Before I left, I was able to train up one person in each of the five companies to be able to attend and shine in the MFT course and the battalion was at a 90% pass rate.
My Infantry company had a policy that I passed along to the HHC. For every 10 points over passing you scored, 1 pound or 0.1% BFI was pencil-whipped off of your height/weight. Both commands believed that if you could walk the walk (or PU/SU/2MR), then it meant you were combat ready. If not, then you got the embarrassment of extra training with a POG to whip you into shape.
Well, its a good thing we’re getting rid of guys like SFC Martland, the SF dude. Just a few hundred more SF guys gone and we’ll have this fattest service think kicked completely.
Obviously just passing the fitness test isn’t enough in today’s military. even more importantly, you have to Look Good in that uniform, too. If you don’t look like an Army Of One, you can’t be an Army Of One.
Tell that to a Samoan Sergeant Major.
By the name of Nua?
Sticks and Stones will break your bones, but Samoans will kill you….
Go for Broke.
Had a Samoan SGT back in the day that went Mustang – couldn’t have been 5’1″ but he was the post powerlifting champ. Coulda used him as a freaking car jack :). We used to laugh at him when he ran because his legs were so short, but those damned things never stopped, ever.
This is sort of a misleading headline, because the services all have different height/weight and body fat standards. On top of that, neither of those two measures is a true assessment of ‘fitness’.
IT is generally true that troops falling within those measures will tend to be generally fit for their age and gender, none of it addresses functional fitness, meaning the actual ability to do the job.
As an example, cannon crew and tankers need a lot of upper body strength, and the fact is that no one cares how far or fast they can run as long as they can move projectiles at a high rate of speed. An infantryman needs a high level of cardiovascular endurance, and must be capable of bursts of speed and power, but doesn’t have a relatively high (compared to the cannoneer) strength requirement.
The current APFT and ht/wt standards drive troops to be lean and fast, when the requirements for ground combat troops are trending more and more into the strength/power/muscular endurance category, simply due to the addition of body armor to the mix. Any Soldier or Marine operating in the combat zone is carrying roughly 80 pounds of gear before you even start adding mission equipment, extra ammo, water, etc.
In fact, the Marines are going to a system that says if you max the PFT test and the CFT you are exempt from height weight standards.
Girth has its place in the military. I never trusted a skinny mess chief. If I got aboard ship and some skinny shit was in-charge of things I knew it was going to be a long trip.
10th Marines is down to two Battalions these days, humping ammo is no longer fashionable. For 35 years my favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs and home fries covered in SOS.
That gave me the energy an Admin Clerk needed to blaze out 20 words a minute.
20 WPM? Slacker!
I managed 35WPM two-finger typing.
But did you use iron sights?
Way back in the day, Hack Stone was a 2861 at 1st ELMACO. It was a Friday afternoon, and we were running out the clock until they sounded liberty. Had had an RT-841 on the bench, waiting for the QC inspector to come along and bless my work. So MGySgt SaltyDog, Vietnam veteran and Maintenance Chief, comes out of his office, sees the radio on the bench, and says “Back in my day on the bench, we didn’t have any of this .5 microvolt bullshit to break squelch. We had to break squelch at .4 microvolts.” So, all of the troops look at Sgt Stone with the “what are you going to say” look on their faces. Sgt Hack Stone replied “Shit, Top. Back in the day when you were on the bench, when they told you to go crypto, you spoke Pig Latin. Omay, Arrylay, Urleycay, fire for effect!” After the laughter died down, he had us lock up our toolboxes and start our weekend. True story.
Never trust a skinny cook and never trust a bald barber!
Never trust an attorney that cannot read a fuel gauge on an airplane.
Wow, 10th Marines is down to two Battalions. At one time we have 5 Battalion in the Early 80s.
Yep, sad and scary shit to hear isn’t it? Hard to imagine but Obama has been more effective at dismantling our military than most realize.
9th Marines are gone all together.
First I accidentally just “Reported” this post. I am old an easily confused. Sorry dude.
I just wanted to say that the odds of having an overweight(fat or muscle) Marine max the PFT(its actually a 285 or better to skip weighting in.)Will be damn near impossible as most big boys will not be running an 18 minute 3 mile.
Damn, I’m glad I’m retired and don’t have to worry about this anymore, either for me or one of my soldiers. Don’t miss having to answer nastygrams about a soldier showing up over weight on a PCS. Too many cheeseburgers while enroute.
http://www.gocomics.com/pickles/2016/10/15
These stats are totally worthless. Show me the numbers on personnel that have completed LBGT Sensitivity Training. Those are the numbers that will show who will win on the battlefield.
Fitness, as someone pointed out, has nothing to do with porkerism. There are many people who look fit and couldn’t make a two mile walk and those who look out of shape but are not. The fact is that if you look like a fat shit in uniform, then you look like a fat shit in uniform.
Who published this in the first place? The New Yawk Post? ‘Nuff said. Bigoted, biased, and an agenda. Or am I being repetitive?
This just seems appropriate here:
The only thing I’d add is I couldn’t give a sh!t what that second Army looks like, provided they’re able to do everything demanded of them.
Don’t forget Sharp training for the first Army.
As others have said, the article doesn’t mean much since each service has a separate standard for what constitutes “overweight.”
The other thing is that in a time of drawdown, weight standards (AR-600-9, at least when I was in) are one of the Army’s most powerful tools for getting rid of people.
I was fortunate to be naturally tall and skinny so I never had to endure the anxiety of the tape test, but I saw a lot of good guys kicked to the curb in the 1990’s when the tape test was the #1 way the Army got rid of people to meet its drawdown goals.
What bothered me was the way the tape test was supposed to be a “neutral” system of getting rid of overweight soldiers, i.e. the standard was supposed to be applied across the board. But of course, everybody knew of a clearly overweight NCO who somehow managed to always get some kind of waiver while others who were less overweight were put on the street.
Funny how the Army didn’t care so much about overweight soldiers during the height of the Iraq war (which is when the photo above was taken, I believe.)
I’m gonna run all day till the runnin’s done.
http://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M4431b9b4a33955d039bcb5e2829576dfH0&pid=15.1
It’s all that good Army chow!
I wonder – if they averaged in the Navy (taxi drivers for the Marines) how the standings would go?
Compare fighting forces and support forces between branches. That may be a better metric.
All that chatter from HQ about weight, and not one peep about rifle marksmanship.