By the Numbers: 8 January 2024
68%
The percentage of active duty service members who are overweight, according to a recently published white paper by the American Security Project, a "nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st Century". Other key findings in the white paper -- Combating Military Obesity: Stigma's Persistent Impact on Operational Readiness:
• Military obesity rates across the active duty have more than doubled over ten years, from 10.4% in 2012 to 21.6% in 2022. Eating disorders increased by approximately 79% between 2017 and 2021.
• Despite being a chronic disease with several FDA-approved treatment options, antiquated body composition policies and stigma prevent effective treatment of obesity within the Armed Forces.
• The removal of body mass statistics from military recruitment and disability reports used by DoD stakeholders and Congress has resulted in incomplete and misleading conclusions. This data is needed to identify at-risk populations and design effective, evidence-based interventions.
The following recommendations are offered:
1. The Defense Health Agency should promote and enforce awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of obesity as a chronic disease across the armed services.
2. Body composition and military appearance regulations should be wholly reviewed and brought in line with evidence-based research. Policies allowing commanders to arbitrarily assign or exempt obese service members from medical intervention should be rescinded.
3. All services should seek to close the gap between high recordings of obese BMI during military health and fitness evaluations and low obesity diagnosis and treatment rates.
4. All service members with obesity should be referred to a credentialed obesity physician, registered dietitian, or bariatric physician for accurate diagnosis and treatment.
5. Military reports on disqualifications, disability, and medical discharge should include BMI data until overweight and obesity diagnoses reflect real obesity rates of the force. Body mass data should be reintroduced within annualized reports evaluating recruitment, retention, and retirement trends.
6. The Defense Health Agency should significantly improve frequency of military obesity report sor broaden the pool of researchers and academics who can access military weight data.
68%
The percentage of active duty service members who are overweight, according to a recently published white paper by the American Security Project, a "nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st Century". Other key findings in the white paper -- Combating Military Obesity: Stigma's Persistent Impact on Operational Readiness:
• Military obesity rates across the active duty have more than doubled over ten years, from 10.4% in 2012 to 21.6% in 2022. Eating disorders increased by approximately 79% between 2017 and 2021.• Despite being a chronic disease with several FDA-approved treatment options, antiquated body composition policies and stigma prevent effective treatment of obesity within the Armed Forces.• The removal of body mass statistics from military recruitment and disability reports used by DoD stakeholders and Congress has resulted in incomplete and misleading conclusions. This data is needed to identify at-risk populations and design effective, evidence-based interventions.
The following recommendations are offered:
1. The Defense Health Agency should promote and enforce awareness, diagnosis, and treatment of obesity as a chronic disease across the armed services.2. Body composition and military appearance regulations should be wholly reviewed and brought in line with evidence-based research. Policies allowing commanders to arbitrarily assign or exempt obese service members from medical intervention should be rescinded.3. All services should seek to close the gap between high recordings of obese BMI during military health and fitness evaluations and low obesity diagnosis and treatment rates.4. All service members with obesity should be referred to a credentialed obesity physician, registered dietitian, or bariatric physician for accurate diagnosis and treatment.5. Military reports on disqualifications, disability, and medical discharge should include BMI data until overweight and obesity diagnoses reflect real obesity rates of the force. Body mass data should be reintroduced within annualized reports evaluating recruitment, retention, and retirement trends.6. The Defense Health Agency should significantly improve frequency of military obesity report sor broaden the pool of researchers and academics who can access military weight data.