Paul Kennedy famously argued that imperial overstretch — that is devoting too much money and resources to military uses — plays a central role in the decline of great powers, including the United States. But it looks like America’s growing obesity epidemic is reducing the pool of capable recruits, according to this story in The Washington Post (via Dana Goldstein).
About 75 percent of the country’s 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces, according to a report to be issued Thursday.
Other factors, such as drug use, criminal records and mental problems, contribute to what military leaders say is a major problem that threatens the country’s ability to defend itself at a time when the all-volunteer force is already strained fighting two wars.
Money quote:
When you get kids who can’t do push-ups, pull-ups or run, this is a fundamental problem not just for the military but for the country,” said Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon’s director of accessions policy. Many kids are not “taking physical education in school; they’re more interested in sedentary activities such as the computer or television. And we have a fast-food mentality in this country.”
Childhood obesity varies considerably across the fifty states and reflects some straightforward economic and demographic patterns, according to a basic correlation analysis by my colleague Charlotta Mellander. Childhood obesity, not surprisingly, reflects adult obesity (with a correlation of .54). It is also more prevalent in states with large working class populations (.4). It is less likely in states with higher income levels (-.32), greater concentrations of the creative class (-.37), and especially those with higher levels of adults with college degrees (-.64).
Photo Credit: Flickr User Seattle Municipal Archives
November 6th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
RF, have you noticed “The allocation of food expenditure in married- and single-parent families.” (The Journal of Consumer Affairs| December 22, 2006 | Ziol-Guest, Kathleen M.; DeLeire, Thomas; Kalil, Ariel) ?
“… families where all parents are employed, irrespective of family structure, spend a greater share of their food budgets on food purchased away from home and a lesser share on vegetables, fruits, milk, and meat and beans compared with married-couple families in which the mother is not employed.”
This correlates with Mellander’s findings: higher-income, College-educated couples are more likely to be able to afford a stay-at-home parent.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:26 am
It appears that the military, known for presenting one of few opportunities for poor young people (especially rural kids) is reeping the results of US policy choices. I’m surprised anyone finds this shocking. Given the country’s proclivity towards defense spending and maintaining a strong foreign policy focus, these results could serve as an impetus for addressing contemporary rural development issues (preferably using a regional development framework), rather than continuing the dichotomous rural/urban contentiousness. Who will be fit to serve? Rich kids, probably from cities? When has that ever happened? Community health, economics and the environment are interdependent.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Is this really a new phenomenon? I challenge anyone here to be honest about their own physical fitness when they were 18. Could YOU have done 10 pullups?
Pullups, not chinups. Palms facing away from you. They’re a lot harder that way.
I was a pencil neck at 18, but one of the (few) advantages was that I didn’t weigh much, and I could do 8 or so pullups. Not many guys could come anywhere close to that number.
Being as this was about 20 years ago now… this is nothing new.
On the bright side, with Predator drones and such, what the military needs is fat, video game playing nerds.
November 11th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Interestingly, for both WW I & II, a large number of recruits were turned down because of malnutrition. They were too skinny.
Solve one problem, create another.
Gilroy is right. I could do 10 pullups at 18, but then that was the era of universal physical education. I’m astonished that so much attention is paid to diet and so little to exercise on both obesity and fitness.