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- Feb 2, 2008
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As has been noted several times, the Army's focus on weight and especially body fat is relatively new.
AD: I don't know what ROTC program you went to 30 years ago- but I believe your memory may be somewhat flawed. Weight is and has always been a huge deal- at least from around 1978 on (at least until the Army got overwhelmed by two endless wars and they started stop-lossing and deploying everyone who had some degree of personal mobility -I know a LTC who deployed to Afghanistan with his nitroglycerin pills for his heart condition! Then- they only cared about having bodies, but that's in the past.) But with the exception of that 6 or 7 year period- the Army has been measuring weight and body fat using the tape test for a very long time- It's a lousy test, but it is the test they have been using for a very long time. I'm sure that if he's an athlete and is a few pounds from the standard then your son will pass, but if he is sweating this now- then he really needs to understand that this is and will be a constant issue and the only way to really avoid feeling the stress throughout his career is to get this under control now, because lots of folks have had their careers wrecked or terminated because of the weight program . He really needs to dump the weight until he is comfortably under the standard and then adopt a lifestyle that keeps it that way. Start by racking up the running miles. Additionally- work out using the Nautilus 4 way neck machine - (the tape test is a ratio of waist measurement to neck measurement, so one way to beat the tape is to have a relatively thick neck- which is one reason why you will see lots of guys on that machine who aren't necessarily body builders!)
It's a reality of life in the Army, and it's not going to go away,and as many of us know all too well- the older you get the more difficult it is to hold down your weight. So assuming that he gets this resolved and gets his appointment, he needs to take this seriously while he is just getting started.
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