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Study: Percentage of overweight recruits up

The pool of recruits fit enough to enlist is shrinking and troops’ waistlines are expanding, a reflection of the nation’s battle against obesity.

The percentage of 18-year-olds who applied for service in all branches of the military but were overweight rose from 27 percent to 32 percent from 1996 through 2005, according to a recent report by the Army. The share of applicants who were obese doubled from 3 percent to 6 percent.

“We’ve been concerned about this for awhile,” said Col. Gaston Bathalon, deputy commander at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass. The issue is magnified now because the Army is struggling to meet its recruitment goals at a time when its ranks are strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The percentage of overweight applicants went up every year of the medical survey. The results are based on body mass index — a formula based on height and weight. The military uses a different, more time-consuming gauge of fitness — the percentage of body fat, calculated by measuring key body areas.

The military is reviewing its fitness guidelines. The Army introduced ARMS (Assessment of Recruit Motivation and Strength), a study that tracks recruits who have been given a second-chance physical test when they’re above body-fat limits. If they pass a step test (up and down on a box for 5 minutes) and can do a minimum number of push-ups (15 for men, four for women), the Army will take them. Those who enlisted under these guidelines have fared well, evidence that body fat is not the sole predictor of performance, according to a 2005 Army report.

To get more recruits, the Army has extended the ARMS testing in the last two years from six sites to more than 50. It allows men into the service who have up to 30 percent body fat and women who have up to 36 percent if they reduce the percentage to standards acceptable for their age groups within a year, Bathalon said.

The Army has launched programs to help troops stay in shape:

• H.E.A.L.T.H. (Healthy Eating and Lifestyle Training Headquarters), a campaign for troops and families to track healthy eating and manage weight via the Internet. The interactive program began at Fort Bragg, N.C., in July and will start next month in two New England units.

“A fairly significant number of soldiers either exceed their weight-height standards or border on exceeding it,” says Donald Williamson, professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., which designed the programs for the Army. “This is a serious problem.”

Soldiers can enter their height, weight, calorie intake and how much they exercise and design a personal weight-loss or weight-management plan. They can even get information about foods served in local restaurants. “If you have a laptop, in theory you can pull up your program in Iraq,” Williamson said.

• A weight-loss program at Fort Bragg substitutes two meals a day with diet shakes and health bars.

• Web sites such as Weigh to Stay and Hooah Bodies provide online nutrition classes, streaming videos and nutrition facts.