The Troops are Fast Getting Fatter

The Pentagon grudgingly revealed to the Military Times that the nation’s armed forces are not immune to the obesity epidemic that has been sweeping the nation in recent years, the charts below illustrating a trend that, hopefully will not (well, can’t) continue.

It is no coincidence that recently discovered documents from the 1960s that also showed up in the news yesterday indicate the sugar industry paid for research that would depict fat as the bad actor in the nation’s big health concern at the time – heart disease.

This thinking has become so ingrained in the American psyche – fat makes you fat and, therefore, it is bad – that it will be difficult to undo before the country collapses under its own weight. The latest evidence of just how difficult is found in the first article above:

“This is about the national security of the United States,” said retired Army Lt.  Gen.  John  Bednarek, who was the highest ranking American general in Iraq in 2014. “It’s a long term trend and we cannot turn a blind eye. The bottom line is that our commanders and senior enlisted leaders have to take a look at what we are serving, whether it’s in the [dining facility] or aboard a ship in the mess. Are we providing healthy choices? Are we providing fruits and vegetable options up front? As opposed to the first thing they see in the morning is the grill with a 22-grams-of-fat sausage patty?”