Too Fat to Fight

With one in four Americans too overweight to enlist, our military is facing a new national security threat.

More soldiers are discharged from military service because of obesity than because of the much debated "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. As my latest column for CNN points out, with one in four Americans too overweight to enlist, our military is facing a new national security threat.

"An army travels on its stomach," said Napoleon Bonaparte.

But what happens if the stomach gets too big to drag?

Congress is passionately debating whether open homosexuality is compatible with military service. But even as this particular culture war seems headed to resolution, a new emerging cultural divide is tearing at military efficiency: obesity and overweight.

In 2008, some 634 military personnel were discharged for transgressing "don't ask, don't tell." That same year, 4,555 were discharged for failing to meet military weight standards.

Military weight standards are not especially demanding. Male recruits younger than 27 must have a body-fat percentage below 26%. That's twice the fat you'd expect in a young man in peak physical condition.

Yet even the relaxed 26% standard is too stringent for modern America. More than 9 million young Americans -- about one in four -- are too overweight to enlist, a recent report found.

So the military has adjusted its expectations.

Otherwise qualified young men with body fat of 30% (the boundary between "overweight" and "obese") can be conditionally recruited if they can perform a basic workout and then commit to reduce their weight within one year.

Serving personnel who exceed military limits are offered counseling, nutritional programs and other weight-control assistance. Discharge is very much a last and unwelcome resort.

By the military's own numbers, some 61% of active-duty personnel were above ideal weight in 2007, up from 50% in 1995.

The U.S. military reflects the society of which it is a part. Americans are gaining weight, and the gain is steepest among the young. ...

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