Considering Evolution, should the body fat standards be relaxed across the U.S. Military?

Unfortunately we Americans seem to be the only ones evolving toward excess body fat. So NO! Keep the standard as it is.

No. The current standard of body fat percentage I don't have a problem with. I have a problem with largely muscled becoming synonymous with overweight. We need to look at our methods of determining bodyfat and adjusting body weight limits with respect to physical fitness.

"Considering evolution" ..... What he fuck is that supposed to mean. The human race does not become fat over the period of the 3 genererations we've seen Americans become obese. Just because we are fat doesn't mean our adversaries are. The demands of combat do not change because you can't do a pull-up.

back to the original question, what do you mean by evolution? the whole theory of evolution garbage. if that is indeed what the word evolution is implying in the original question people are fatter now than they were in the 40's. plain and simple. if people in the 40's had as much tech as we have now, I think they would have been just as fat. the theory of evolution states that species are made stronger by evolving. I dont think being fat is a step in the right direction.

Evolution is definitely not in play here. Evolution is an extremely slow process taking millions of years. What you're referring to is a change in American diets that give a propensity for people to become heavier. There is nothing natural about why Americans tend to be heavier than other cultures. This is purely a function of our changing diets.

If anything, the standards we have are too relaxed. Looking mission ready is almost as important is being mission ready. The military is a lifestyle, not a job. If someone can't (by choice or not) get their body to fit that lifestyle, then the military is not for them. The military isn't something anyone can do.

no change to fat body standards. Folks got to push away from the table once in a while and PT. No secret to being or getting into shape. If you do not have the abity or mental strength to get or stay in shape, McDonalds is always hiring.

The Coast Guard has revised the standards several times in the last 20 years. I came up with a program for those who were not over weight to 'sell' their margins to overweight shipmates as a system to encourage units to help each other and prevent loss of personnel who were marginally overweight. There were ethical and practical issues, but the idea was to get past the red tape and rescue the careers of people who were having difficulty meeting arbitraty standards.

least in the 5% of the lowest BMI index. As soon as the standards are lowered BMI scores will go in the absolute wrong direction, it's human nature.

7 years ago our troop count was over a million. Now it's below 400,000. In my estimation the remaining service members should be 3X over their current "ideal" Body mass index. We can't be effective with fat, out of shape service members.

The same should be the standard for The Reserve and National Guard units. They could be turned into active troops with a moments notice.

So what I got from this article is "Blah, blah, blah... We acknowledge there's a problem. Blah, blah, blah... We're not going to fix it because we're too lazy..."

While a lot of Sailors who fail height/weight and rope & choke really ARE overweight, there's still that small percentage of people with body builder type physiques who are also labeled fat and that's what needs to change.

But I seriously doubt the Navy (or the other services) will ever actually do something about it.

Here's my situation. When I graduated high school I weighed 150 lbs of rock solid muscle, and my gym teacher measured me at around 7% body fat using the skin pinch/caliper method.

Fast forward a few months later when I was in boot camp. Same physique as I was doing martial arts for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. The Navy said I was 18% body fat (though it didn't matter since I was within height/weight standards). How the f--k did I more than double my body fat % even though I didn't gain an ounce?

I could never meet the hight Waite standard. But my body fat was never over 17% and you where allowed 22%. But because of this I was denied over 8 awards because of it. Even though I met the standard the commander at the time view was if you can't meet the hight Waite standerd he won't approve any awards.