Army is facing a weight problem
With many applicants flunking their physicals, a fat farm is being considered.
FORT JACKSON, S.C. - The Army has been dismissing so many overweight applicants that its top recruiter, trying to keep troop numbers up in wartime, is considering starting a fat farm to transform chubby trainees into svelte soldiers.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, head of the Army Recruiting Command, said he wanted to see a formal diet and fitness regimen running alongside a new school at Fort Jackson that helps aspiring troops earn their GEDs.
Obesity is "a bigger challenge for us in the years ahead" than any other problem that keeps young people from entering the military, including misconduct or criminal behavior, lack of a high school diploma or GED, and other health issues, he said.
According to Defense Department figures provided to the AP, over the last four years 47,447 potential recruits flunked induction physicals at the nation's 35 Military Entrance Processing Stations because they were overweight.
That is a fraction of the more than 200,000 such exams administered each year from 2005 to 2008, but is still a hefty number, at a time when the military is more interested than ever in recruits.
The Army and Marine Corps together paid more than $600 million over the last year in bonuses and other financial incentives to attract volunteers.
Obesity afflicts recruits for other physically demanding jobs, including firefighters.
Deputy Chief Ed Nied, chair of the safety, health and survival section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said fire departments were making a "major push" to encourage better fitness among young people who wanted to join.
"We draw from the same exact population that they [the military] draw from," Nied said from his Tucson, Ariz., headquarters.
In an interview during a visit to the Army's largest training installation, Bostick said a slim-down camp could be part of the new Army Prep School at Fort Jackson, S.C.
The school opened in August, and gives recruits who did not graduate from high school the chance to earn a GED before starting their nine weeks of basic training.
"We are looking at the Army Prep School as a place where we might send some [recruits] that have weight issues," the two-star general said.
Bostick argues that many of the young people who want to join the Army have a hard time understanding a healthy diet and the importance of daily exercise, but could get within the military limits with guidance.
"It took them 18 years to get to where they are at, so it's very difficult for them to lose the kind of weight that they need to on their own," said Bostick, who did not provide any timing for when his idea might reach fruition, nor any projection of its cost.
Lawrence J. Korb, a former Pentagon chief of personnel during the Reagan administration, said the Army had to fight even harder than the other service branches to get the recruits they needed.
"The Army has a tough time recruiting as compared to the other services," said Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington. He said the burden for fighting an unpopular war in Iraq had fallen primarily on the military's largest service.
"They are desperate," Korb said.
Recruiters echoed Bostick's worries about weight issues.
"I'd say that out of every 10 applicants that come in, probably three we couldn't take - they are obese," said Sgt. Darryl Bogan, a recruiter in Columbia, S.C.
Besides basic weight and height guidelines, Bogan said the Army used body-fat percentages and an aerobics test to determine whether recruits could withstand the rigors of basic training.
A Bogan recruit, Idalia Halley, 18, was shocked when she found she was a few pounds too heavy to enter boot camp.
"My mom was like, 'You better come run with me,' " Halley recalled. She said it took several weeks of healthy eating and runs with her Army-veteran mother to get into the service.