21% - THE NUMBER THAT PROVES US GENERALS DON’T CARE ABOUT READINESS…
OR TAXPAYER DOLLARS
By John Hughes
December 20, 2024
OR TAXPAYER DOLLARS
Perennially, American generals proclaim how focused they are on the readiness of the military. There is a big problem with their delusion: rising and rampant obesity in the military.
21% Obesity
$1.5B in obesity associated costs
In September 2024, the American Security Project published a recent study showing that 21% of the active-duty military is obese. Worse, 70% are classified as overweight. The first logical question could be is this a one-year anomaly. If so, the generals could be forgiven as they devise a plan to combat the issue. Let’s look at the trend in weight for the active-duty military in past years.1
Year % Obese % Overweight
2024 21% 70%
20232 21% 68%
20223 21% 67%
20214 19% 51%5
20206 15%
2012 10%
Shockingly, during the COVID lockdown, when the military literally had nothing else to do with its time, service members accelerated their weight gain. This begs the question about what the adult supervision (generals) was doing during that time. Obviously, they were not focusing on readiness or the health of their force.
With an obese Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin) and a recently overweight Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (GEN (Ret) Mark Milley) the DoD is not setting a good example of fitness from the top down.
https://armedforces.press/21-the-number-that-proves-us-generals-dont-care-about-readiness/
