The Current Army Weight Control Program: Policy And GoalsĪll soldiers, regardless of rank, are weighed at 6-month intervals to demonstrate that they are below tabled height-weight limits (divided by gender and into four age categories). The use of these standards has also changed from simple entry selection criteria to standards that must be maintained throughout an Army career by appropriate nutrition and exercise. Prompted by these health trends and the current national obsession with body fat and fitness, the principal target of physical standards in the Army has shifted from underweight to overfat soldiers. Although tuberculosis was a leading cause of death in the early 1900s, the leading cause of death in 1987 was heart disease (Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, 1988). However, improved nutrition has also increased the importance of health risks at the other extreme of body size, with excessive fatness due to overnutrition. In addition to advances in health care, improved nutrition over the past century has produced increases in the mean height, weight, and fat-free mass of soldiers ( Table 3-1) (Karpinos, 1961). The need for height-weight standards has diminished as the importance of these diseases has diminished. Weight-for-height standards were relevant when a sizable proportion of draftees and volunteers were malnourished, tuberculous, or had parasitic diseases underweight was a good marker of such individuals who were clearly unsuited to the physical demands of the military. Army's fitness emphasis to ensure that forces ''possess the stamina and endurance to fight in extreme climatic and terrain environments'' (Study of the Military Services Physical Fitness, 1981).įor most of the past century, weight-for-height has been a key physical discriminator of a recruit's fitness for military service, but until recently, these standards were used only to exclude underweight candidates. Currently, body fat standards are part of the U.S. This standard has usually meant the selection of soldiers who at least looked as though they could carry loads and fight well. The primary intent of physical standards in the military has always been to select soldiers best suited to the physical demands of military service.