Two articles in the Washington Post detail the extremes U.S. military personnel are going to in order to meet standards for body shape.
Air Force Technical Sergeant Heather Sommerdyke runs eight to ten miles, six days a week. She can pass all the Air Force Physical Training requirements: the run, the pushups, and the situps. But, against her wishes, she is being downsized in midcareer, because she is said to be too fat. Her waist size of 37 inches is an inch and a half in excess of the maximum allowed by the Air Force.
Anyone who can run ten miles without stopping is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “too fat.” Too fat for what, for crying out loud?
Navy Master-at-Arms Mick Kruger routinely scores “excellent” in the mile-and-a-half run, and he has completed his first marathon. His performance evaluations have never gone below 4 out of 5, and he has been lauded for his “superb military appearance.” Yet he too, is getting the ax for being “too fat.” At six-foot-four and 240 pounds, with a waist size of 40.5 inches, his body fat percentage has been estimated at 25 percent, three percentage points higher than the Navy’s allowed maximum.
Again: too fat for what?
Both articles I’ve linked to above detail the extremes U.S. servicemen and women have been going to in order to meet the military’s standards for body shape. Many of them – Sommerdyke and Kruger included – have spent thousands of dollars on liposuction surgery. Starvation diets, purging, laxatives, and dehydration are all commonly employed – even in combat zones.
What fathead thought any of this was a good idea?
I have never spent a day in the military, but then again I don’t think you need to be General George S. Patton to figure any of this out. Suppose you had to go to war, and you were wounded, and one of your comrades hoisted you on his shoulders and began running for cover. Would you care if he had the strength and speed and stamina to make it? I dare say you would. Would you care what his body fat percentage was? Would you care if he had a trim waist or a shapely little fanny? I didn't think so.
It is perfectly reasonable for the military to expect active duty personnel to meet standards of strength and speed and stamina. It is not reasonable for them to be downsizing physically fit servicemen and women because of some effete standard of the tape measure, a ridiculous “thinner thighs” view of physical fitness all of us – whether military or civilian – would be better off ignoring. Our servicemen and women – not to mention the taxpayers – deserve better.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Richard Rider
Willett .
Lucinda Bliss
LEV JANASHVILI
TimingLogic
Patrick Frank
Salon.com
Comments