Military says kids are too fat!

Americans are fat?  Whaaaaaaa????????  When did this happen? 

During the commercial break.

Combination of fast food diets and kids entertaining themselves in virtual worlds versus outside.

The issue isn't that "Americans" are fat, it's that Military-eligible people are not military eligible because they're too fat and it's getting worse. 

The Army for example has to bring-in 80,000 new people per month to keep their manpower levels even.  The Marine Corps has a lower requirement, but generally higher physical standards so when their recruiting pool is reduced because kids are overweight, they fail to make quota and then it's a decisions of what bar do you lower? Intelligence, physical, criminal?

The CIA tracks Manpower Available for Military Service and Manpower Fit for Military Service for each country because it's a good indication of how many bodies they could put into a war if they absolutely needed to.  So, the CIA world factbook says we have 73 MM available, only 60 MM fit.  I believe this report suggests 25% of that 60 MM who would be fit for servie are in fact too fat. 

Using a comparison from the same source, Indonesia has more Manpower than the US. China has 318 MM.  India has 207 MM.

Of course, the classified report says 2 in 4 American kids are too sarcastic and disrespectful for military service.

Wouldn't the 13MM be your 25% too fat to fight? 

but how is this different than the general american population?  they are basically counting 18-34 year old males, right?  why wouldn't that cross-section have the same level of obesity as the general population?

Check this out...

A 7oz regular Coke has 82 calories and 23 grams of sugar (57% of the FDA daily intake of added sugar.)

A 12oz regular Coke has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar (98% of the FDA daily intake added sugar.)

A 42oz regular Coke has 490 calories and 137 grams of sugar (341% of the FDA daily intake added sugar.)

Most people in a fast food joint these days would laugh at the sight of a 7oz drink!  Combine this with video-game-playing, no-exercise kids and you get... FAT KIDS!

16-39 is the Military Age Males according to the CIA. 

I'm not sure if the 1 in 4 refers to the 73 MM or the 60 MM because I think the difference between those two counts disabilities (blind, missing limbs, etc) and maybe has a bell-curve for people who are not mentally competent.

But this report explains it a little better: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/15/AR2010061502306.html

Basically, the military is saying "We need kids to stay in-shape so we can make our recruitment goals." 

The most likely course of action if they have to lower standards to bring-in kids who are unfit is that they'll open up an extra platoon or company at each boot camp to remediate the new troops (tax dollars) and then they'll have to have some weight management controls for active duty troops (tax dollars).  If those fail, then they'll be bouncing a lot of troops out because they don't maintain the standards and they'll need to be replaced (more tax dollars).

regardless of where the number comes from ....my point was that kido saying americans are fat this is not news is completely appropriate.  if the general population of america is fat, why wouldn't this cross-section being monitored be exactly the same?

Oh no, I agree with that.  This is definitely more one more log to fuel the Great Chicago fire.

I didn't say he was being inappropriate did I?  Do you mean my Sarcasm comment?

your response was "i know that americans are fat, but this article says military available americans are fat!" like they were somehow different....

80,000 people per month?  There's no way they could EVER train that number...that stat has to be wrong...

But this does bring up an interesting question...IF we ever had to draft people again could they really 4F people for being fat...you'd see a lot of fat people walking around if that was true....

Though, I have to say...with advanced medical screening I suspect we'd have a LOT more 4F's than we ever had in WWII or Korea...

I guess I was just bringing-up another thread to add to the whole School Lunch debate considering Michele Obama made that her big push for schools to have healthier lunches (which I think is a noble and worthy cause) and the military is backing her with the reports that have been coming out since 2005 that kids are so fat they can't even train them with the current budget for training.

I went to lunch and Mehaner fought my battle!  She got it.  Be careful or I will send her after you again.

What do you mean "they"?...   We know you were the little butterball...

And the other one was probably your imaginary friend?

So?

tan engineers stick together