The US Military has an obesity crisis and it's getting worse.
It’s no secret, western militaries are really struggling to recruit new troops. From 2002 to 2022 applications have fallen by 54% for the US. During this same time period obesity rates have increased as well.
The leading cause of recruitment disqualification and separations is obesity with roughly 52,000 applicants disqualified based on weight in 2023 alone.
Even with this the Military has had to relax it’s recruitment and active duty standards to ensure it’s military strength doesn’t dwindle.
This had led to a massive increase in acceptance of obese applicants and a relaxing of standards for active duty personnel with a 2023 study finding that 68% of active duty service members are overweight or obese.
This has led the US to create the Future soldier Preparatory course otherwise dubbed as fat camp. However, a 2024 study states military weight management programs may work in the short term but fail in the long term with military personnel putting the weight back on afterwards
All this hasn’t just led to a drop off in military strength but is also coming at a huge financial cost. In fact obese active duty service members are costing $1.35B annually with $1.25B of that being spent on healthcare costs and $99M on productivity losses due to hospital stays.
